I am learning GTOS (Graviteam: Operation Star)

[markshot]

Well, the subject is clear.  My questions:

 

(1)  I've seen the current CM WWII series compared to GTOS on their forums and STEAM.  Are there any interesting comparison threads here?  (I am interested in peoples opinions.)

 

(2)  Is this a legal discussion for these forums?  As these forums are not a public unaffiliated Web site, but that of the developer of one of the two games?

 

Thanks.

[agusto]

1) I remember that we had 1 or 2 discussions about GTOS, yeah. Try the forum search, you might find them.

 

2) Legal...yes, i think so. IIRC you just arent allowed to post advertisement links to non-Battlefront products. But you should be aware though that this is a place where the fans of the Combat Mission series reside, so expect opinions to be biased. Discussions about whether GTOS or CM are better is a bit like discussing soccer with the fans of 2 opposing clubs, you know, there is a lot of bias, emotions and stuff. But yeah, it' s legal as long as the discussion stays civilised.

[General Jack Ripper]

There was a thread a while back making a comparison between the games.

Personally, I tried the demo for Operation Star, but just couldn't get into it.

I think the biggest problem is WEGO play in Combat Mission has the rewind/fast forward buttons, and I just love watching the action in instant replay.

So I guess I'm just biased against real-time games in general.

[markshot]

Yep, I love WEGO.  I just found out if you save the turn in the movie phase, then you can rewatch the movie.  I don't understand why they don't have a simple facility to just record the entire battle.  I would love be able to watch one from start to finish.

[RockinHarry]

+1 for the operational layer in GTOS, but -1 for lack of WEGO mode. Didn´t try, but AFAIK GTOS´s mission/operation editors are pretty limited, as you can´t make your own battles with custom made maps, nor you can´t create something that´s not shipped with the game, like OOB/units for different time periods and theaters. Beside that I think GTOS is the best RT eastern front game out there, while CM is the better overall game.

[Agua]

I haven't touched it in several years, mainly due to the difficulty of installing addons, game updates, etc., during migration between several computers. It was enjoyable, definitely. I didn't care for the way it handled arty, and the maps were very, very limited. Other than those matters, it was, overall, a very good game. Again, the installation / update system is beyond awful, though.

[Alchenar]

It's fun to watch, the problem I have with it is that it's a little too good at generating realistic company level engagements on the 1943 Eastern Front - to whit it largely consists of platoons fumbling around a huge barren landscape, occasionally blundering into enemy force.  Because of this you can all too often spend an hour long battle (with time acceleration) staring at a screen where absolutely nothing is happening.  You can seize objective points and never see the enemy, you can defend them and never see them.

 

On the other hand, because the battles are generated according to the operational level you often encounter unwinnable fights - the first operation involves battered German infantry companies with no heavy weapons getting overrun by Soviet tanks.  Sure it happened, but it results in you sitting there with nothing to do.

 

Finally I found it really unclear what the player is actually supposed to do in tactical battles beyond point in the direction you want your guys to go and let the TacAI do the rest.  Pretty to watch, but my preference is definitely for a game that asks for a bit more interaction from the player.

[Muzzleflash1990]

I just recently had my 3rd go at it. My previous "go"s were quite frustrating. The first time I played as soviet trying to encircle 320th or something like that. One problem was, as have been mentioned, the AI doing weird things, like attacking in the operational map and the doing nothing or fumbling around in the RTS part. When in combat it is quite confusing, you don't get any information about why things are happening. It's not that war is hell and I lose control; I get that. I want to know why I lose control, or why my mean with fire superiority is losing morale. Sometimes units would freeze and not move anymore. Why can't I share ammunition between squads inside platoons?

The second time, was just as frustrating. I started a campaign, and was attacked by more tanks and more infantry than I had. I wanted to ambush the tanks sent forward alone. My men only had some anti-tank grenades and other stuff. My troops waited in the dark and the tank rolled by. Why did they not attack? Couldn't they use that weapon? Were they afraid? Did I select some option not allowing them (don't think so). Again not frustrated they didn't attack the attack or I couldn't control them to do so, but more because I had no idea why not. My spotting of the tanks during night was quite poor and lossy, even with numerous platoons around. But when the tank spotted my soldiers, it picked of the members of a squad one by one, like it knew where they were. In my futile attempts at close attacking it with AT-grenades, there were units all around it. The gun just magically locked onto members one by one, some coaxial fire onto each one in sequence. If the last couple of soldiers were on varying bearings from the tanks it would still target them without pause. Was a bit surrealistic.

The third time went better for me. But was still quite frustrating. I picked another campaign, "Pavlovka" I think. It was supposed to be easier, and boy it was. You could just steamroll the enemy, which then didn't seem very smart. They made a night attack with a dozen tanks and some platoons, against my 2 tanks and a platoon across a fording. The two tanks cut down the tanks crossing the ford but they just kept coming. It was a slaughter, only lost like 3 men versus 11 tanks and 60. Similar battles of slightly smaller scale occurred. The AI in CM has a poor reputation for attacking: sometimes it does very poor, sometimes it does decent. I found that the random AI in GTOS consistently have a random performance between poor and awful.

The frustration of lack of information persisted. Why, during some night battles, did the sky light with flares? Did the enemy shoot them, or did mine? And if mine, or the enemy for that matter, why did it not happen during some other night battles? Why did the campaign maps say most of my units and "ammo: 100", and then squads were almost entirely empty? Do formation really have an impact, did seem like it in my battles?

I finished the campaign, and haven't started the game up since. Maybe me and the game are just too different...

Edited September 15, 2015 by Muzzleflash1990

[markshot]

Thanks for the opinions.  I am still just working on learning it.  I just got a new PC and am working on learning a lot of stuff.

 

I've only invested $35 USD on the base game.  I won't invest more unless the game engine grabs me.  It did have good reviews and seemed worth a try.  (also, I have always been a sucker more or less for dynamic campaigns)

[Bulletpoint]

Seems interesting... lots of different design decisions than in the CM games. (Fast armour turning, crushing trees, vehicles leave tracks, etc...). Haven't tried it, so can't say if it's better than CM, but competition is always a good thing..

 

EDIT: Just checked this video, seems like you have no idea about what the terrain actually works, since basically identical looking terrain squares can have massively different effects on cover and concealment. This is a potential gamebreaker to me. At least in CM, you can learn what effect each of the terrain types has. In this game, seems like you're flying blind.

 

Edited September 15, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[womble]

Yep, I love WEGO.  I just found out if you save the turn in the movie phase, then you can rewatch the movie.  I don't understand why they don't have a simple facility to just record the entire battle.  I would love be able to watch one from start to finish.

They don't have a "simple facility to record" because it's just not simple.

I just hated the GTOS demo. It was worse than the Shock Force demo when that was first out, and it (the GTOS one) was meant to be a tutorial. Scale, detail, feedback are all inferior to CM, IMO.

[markshot]

Well, I will try the game as I bought it.  Of course, the learning curve is a big issue.  I hate to put in a few hundred hours into a game which I will eventually shelve.  But it has had very good feedback from some serious war gamers.

[Macisle]

I got the whole series on supersale for like $40, but I ended up having buyer's remorse. I gave up on it after about two weeks. There are some nice touches, but to my taste, the negatives far outweigh those. Aside from the tank track effects (spattering dirt/snow and detracking), there is nothing that I would consider better than in CM2 (sometimes assuming mods). Armor and penetrations seemed occasionally off, too. Also, I played a ton of QBs and after a few days was already struggling to find any interesting new map locations, despite having all of the maps in the series.

Basically, GTOS is Close Combat done in 3D. I dropped CC like a hot stone when CM came out and never looked back.

Having said the above, if you want real time play only and are looking to do less micro-managing than CM2 requires (which is one of the things I most love about CM2!), then GTOS may be fun for you.

 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Macisle

[womble]

Well, I will try the game as I bought it.  Of course, the learning curve is a big issue.  I hate to put in a few hundred hours into a game which I will eventually shelve.  But it has had very good feedback from some serious war gamers.

Heh. If you put hundreds of hours into a game, you've gotten your money's worth, even if you do eventually drop it. Many games don't even offer 100 hours of play.

[markshot]

Well, I meant hundreds of hours learning.  I plan to put in thousands of hours into such games playing.

 

I can never understand how one can put 100 hours of learning into a game that only has another 100 hours of game play.  It seems a total waste.  I play H2H.  My priorities when shopping are:

 

* Mature software (patched and no serious issues)

* Good game play.

* Quality AI opponent.

* Either a good dynamic campaign or a prolific community of scenario writers.

[Alchenar]

You guys are all bad at buying video games, I paid $2 for the base game and $1 for an expansion.  Despite my criticisms it remains on my hard drive and eventually I'll have another go at breaking into it and I'm open to the idea of buying from Graviteam again.

[markshot]

Well, you can never beat free!  I consider $3 USD free.

 

But I will tell these days, even free is not worth wasting hundreds of hours in time for a game without years of replayability.

[umlaut]

I bought one of the previous games, Achtung Panzer, about five years ago. I really liked the graphics, but the gameplay sucked in my opinion. I found it very hard to learn - and very confusing to play. Hated the UI too.

It was dirt cheap, 10 euros if I remember correctly, but I very soon gave up on it. So I'll have to repeat what i've said several times before: In terms of gaming hours pr euro/dollar/krone CM is still way the cheapest game I ever bought.

[Wodin]

I'm looking forward to Muis front. Graviteam Tactics is a superb game..I usually despise real time games but love this one, It's not  click fest in any shape or form and is pretty good on the realism stakes aswell. CMx2 beats it as my No1 Tactical wargame because I can play WEGO. If I was a real time player I'd put Graviteam just above Cmx2.

[BletchleyGeek]

* Mature software (patched and no serious issues)

* Good game play.

* Quality AI opponent.

* Either a good dynamic campaign or a prolific community of scenario writers.

Hi Mark,

 

I am not a great fan of the series - as noted above it's like Close Combat but without the info and clarity of presentation of unit status, etc. 

 

Regarding your 4 bullet points, GTOS scores full marks on the first one, 5/10 on the second one (it has an operational layer that looks very cool but it just area based as in Close Combat, with the same kind of shenanigans you could expect, like not being able to have two companies occupying the same 1 square km area etc), 6/10 on the third one (the AI sometimes is impressive, and sometimes is hilariously bad) and 0 on the fourth one.

 

You may have some enjoyment watching the evolutions of your units and the pretty graphics. But as soon as you try to implement your plan, it is a bit like the game says to you "get your dirty hands off me, do you want me to take that hill, I will do that myself" and then bunches the troops into a mob that charges uphill on the open.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2015 by BletchleyGeek

[markshot]

Well, I am just a day or two from being over the learning curve.

 

I will need to find out for myself.  Peoples opinions vary.  It does have a large steam community and English customer base.  I know my gaming tastes are different than many, since there are games I have found to be superb that have remained niche games despite the fact that I thought they would take the market by storm.  An some popular games, well I only imagine being forced to play at Gitmo like The Sims. 

[Bulletpoint]

I've been watching some videos of the game on youtube, and it seems interesting, but quite a different beast than CM. I don't think they are in direct competition. Both games seem to have something the other doesn't. Might be interested in trying it out some day, but not too keen on paying (the equivalent of) 33 dollars for it right now.

[markshot]

Well, I have been practicing with the quick battle generator.  Mainly open frozen terrain.  I have been practicing defending against German attacks:  flat open, multiple platoons, organic mortars, dug in trenches, and off map arty.  For the first time today, I went on the offensive as the attacker as the Soviets.  (The German plan was solid to get to the tree line first and hold the only really defensible feature for kilometers.  In fact, most of my casualties was in the initial melee which took place grabbing the trees.  The only thing the Germans might have done different is taken the tree line much farther from the set up zone, and then attempted to roll up my flank.)

 

I had a 2:1 advantage on the Germans (I figured I deserved it as the attacker), but did not allow them to dig in.  Thus, rushing and holding a tree line swung the battle.  The Germans attacked, but mainly lost because I held the tree line.  After they had spent themselves, I continued with the attack.

 

Very different from CM.  You are not going to give a lot of fine grained orders.  The order management system is quite novel, but very effective.

 

* You have order points which regenerate at various rates depending on difficulty.  Most things cost order points.  So. micromanaging will paralyze your side.  You must command carefully and wisely.

 

* Low morale, out of command units, killed commanders, poorly performing units have a much higher order cost.  When units are out of command or exceed the order cost; they simply ignore you!

[Alchenar]

Yeah this is the thing that gives me hope.  While I haven't yet managed to climb over the learning curve of GTOS, I've seen enough posts from other people who have and declare from the other side that it's actually a pretty fun game that I can't dismiss it out of hand.

[markshot]

I think you can get beyond the learning curve, but it will definitely be work.