Exciting news about Battlefront and Slitherine

[Bozowans]

38 minutes ago, Mord said:

No. I am not real big on operational level games. I have a distinct dislike for NATO symbols, always have. They just don't do anything for me. That scale and the visuals takes me away from the intimacy of the fighting. But if the counter squares were switched over to actual tanks, infantry, airplanes, ships models/sprites it would probably be much more appealing to me. I have been dicking with a JTS demo for Napoleon. You can view the battle with miniatures on "3D terrain" and zoom out to symbols and a 2D map. I like that aspect because it feels like you are going from the battlefield to a commander looking over his plans. Best of both worlds I guess. Though, as I said, they GOTTA update the graphics.

However, I can appreciate that Com Ops2 is innovative and designed outside the stereotypical box. Same goes for Command: Modern Operations, War in the Pacific, War in the East II, Lock N Load, to name a few. Games that don't interest me for one reason or another but have updated the traditions they have come from and dare to be more.

I am more about the tactical to grand tactical level when it comes to wargames (with a few exceptions). They feel more gritty, personal and immersive to me. I like the stories they create. The biggest level games I probably play are OOB WWII and Unity of Command but most would agree they are Beer and Pretzel. I enjoy the art aesthetic of Unity, and I love all the units in OOB.

As an aside there are ways for games to create intimacy, immersion and less visual abstraction, and that's through the UI. Tiller is able to do this with the unit cards. Though I am not overall attracted to his stuff, it's one area I think would fit well in a lot of games, with more detailed info though. There's a lot of immersion that can be found in a unit card that can offset more abstract graphics.

 

Mord.

Have you ever tried Steel Panthers? There is Steel Panthers WW2 and also Main Battle Tank for the modern era. They seem like a middle ground for what you are talking about. They are very old-school turn-based, hex-based tactical games but they use little tank and infantry graphics.

I had been getting into them recently. It is interesting to see how the battles play out compared to something like CM.  There are clear advantages and disadvantages to each type of game. The 2D abstraction of Steel Panthers allows it to simulate almost every conflict I can think of from the 20th century onward. There are hundreds of scenarios covering everything from the Russian Civil War through every year and theater of WW2 to the Arab-Israeli Wars, Cold War, Vietnam, or even battles between Kurdish YPG fighters and ISIS in 2014. That's something I've never seen in any other game.

Meanwhile, it takes years to produce CM games covering just one battle, and that's with them re-using assets from their other games. They chose Bagration for CMRT so they could re-use their 1944 German stuff and not have to make everything again from scratch.

I like hex-based stuff in general though, operational or tactical. I don't see what anyone would have against them (except in FoG 2. Squares work much better for that). I loved the old SSG wargames like Korsun Pocket or Battles in Normandy. They tell their own epic stories of whole armies getting encircled and destroyed and so on.

I agree with your larger point though. Traditional wargames or hexes aren't objectively better than everything else. There is no "true wargame" or whatever. The CMx2 games are some of my favorite games, yet they do have limitations. There are things that hex-based games can do that CM can't.

[Erwin]

Star Trek holographic deck...   Yes...!  The challenge is that for the foreseeable future, ie our lifetimes, that tech product will be so expensive that it will be cheaper and easier to simply join the army and volunteer for their "I wanna fight anybody at any time, don't care why" program...  

[Erwin]

17 minutes ago, Bozowans said:

Have you ever tried Steel Panthers? There is Steel Panthers WW2 and also Main Battle Tank for the modern era.

That was great - until CM1 arrived... then dropped SP and its various modules like a hot potato.

[BFCElvis]

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

That was great - until CM1 arrived... then dropped SP and its various modules like a hot potato.

That is my history too. Peng and I would play that because we no longer lived close enough to play ASL anymore. Once the CM1 beta demo came out we never looked back.

[RockinHarry]

Ah... had great times with SPWAW. Good old times. Still waiting for a worthy successor which likely never comes (Steel Tigers seems to be more of a myth for many years now). Armored Brigade´s AB43 mod has great potential, but the game engine has some serious flaws. Another interesting candidate is Lock´n Load digital and it´s brother Nations at War. Still at beta something, but there´s a promising L&L mission editor to be released very soon. All not a substitute nor competition for CM though.

[Mord]

2 hours ago, Bozowans said:

Have you ever tried Steel Panthers? There is Steel Panthers WW2 and also Main Battle Tank for the modern era. They seem like a middle ground for what you are talking about. They are very old-school turn-based, hex-based tactical games but they use little tank and infantry graphics.

 

Oh, yeah. I owned the original back in 1994ish? Whatever year it came out. Don't own the Shrapnel version though. (See Below)

 

2 hours ago, Bozowans said:

I had been getting into them recently. It is interesting to see how the battles play out compared to something like CM.  There are clear advantages and disadvantages to each type of game. The 2D abstraction of Steel Panthers allows it to simulate almost every conflict I can think of from the 20th century onward. There are hundreds of scenarios covering everything from the Russian Civil War through every year and theater of WW2 to the Arab-Israeli Wars, Cold War, Vietnam, or even battles between Kurdish YPG fighters and ISIS in 2014. That's something I've never seen in any other game.

I have Steel Panthers MBT. I grabbed it to fill in the gaps that CM doesn't cover, to enjoy a different style of play and have access to more obscure conflicts/armies. But it's hard on the eyes.

I also have Campaign Series Middle East and the WWII titles (same reasoning).

I view them as more like a table top or board game to get around all the abstractions, and that is fine. I also like the fact that they are able to simulate things that CM can't or is outside its scope, like bridge laying, mine laying, building entrenchments. I like that huge diorama feel and the big detailed maps. I don't mind that the infantry is like a clump of posed minis. I can easily imagine my guys in one of those little villages or in a city. But it's really hard to see what the units are. I find myself squinting even while looking at them on a 42" TV.

But to prove I am not a graphics snob, I find these to be excellent and quite immersive.

A couple figure can represent hundreds, no animations to speak of outside of some flying arrows and javelins, and I enjoy them. So, my bar isn't very high. LOL.

 

2 hours ago, Bozowans said:

The CMx2 games are some of my favorite games, yet they do have limitations. There are things that hex-based games can do that CM can't.

 

Yep. No argument there.

 

Mord.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Mord

[Anonymous_Jonze]

4 hours ago, Mord said:

 

Is this Steel Panthers as well?  The city images remind me of Civ 4, my all time favorite. 

[Mord]

1 hour ago, Anonymous_Jonze said:

Is this Steel Panthers as well?  The city images remind me of Civ 4, my all time favorite. 

Campaign Series: Middle East 1948-1985

It's mainly the Arab-Israeli War, but includes Britain, France, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon. Eventually they are supposed to add an Iran Iraq dlc. It's a heavily updated version of the old Tiller Campaign Series. They are supposed to release Campaign Series Vietnam this year. You can find info on Slitherine/Matrix.

The other screens are Field of Glory I.

Mord.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Mord

[Probus]

23 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

That is my history too. Peng and I would play that because we no longer lived close enough to play ASL anymore. Once the CM1 beta demo came out we never looked back.

So does ASL come after Crescendo of Doom or more... along side it?

[BFCElvis]

6 minutes ago, Probus said:

So does ASL come after Crescendo of Doom or more... along side it?

If memory serves me, wasn't Crescendo of Doom a "module" of the original SL, before the ASL manual came out?

[Sequoia]

That's how I remember it too.

[Holien]

1 hour ago, BFCElvis said:

If memory serves me, wasn't Crescendo of Doom a "module" of the original SL, before the ASL manual came out?

Yes. 

Your memory is good..

I had all the original modules.

[sburke]

On 5/12/2021 at 5:03 PM, Mord said:

Campaign Series: Middle East 1948-1985

It's mainly the Arab-Israeli War, but includes Britain, France, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon. Eventually they are supposed to add an Iran Iraq dlc. It's a heavily updated version of the old Tiller Campaign Series. They are supposed to release Campaign Series Vietnam this year. You can find info on Slitherine/Matrix.

The other screens are Field of Glory I.

Mord.

Interesting.  I have the old series and was trying to utilize that for a CMSF op layer, but the map only covers a sliver of Syria.  If it is expended I'll probably get it.  

[Mord]

9 minutes ago, sburke said:

Interesting.  I have the old series and was trying to utilize that for a CMSF op layer, but the map only covers a sliver of Syria.  If it is expended I'll probably get it.  

Divided Ground: Middle East Conflict 1948-1973?

That'd be one gigantic map!

1 Hex = 250 Meters (820 Feet)
6.43 Hexes = 1 Mile
4 Hexes = 1 Kilometer

You could always make your own, cut them up into sectors. The Nam master map is gonna be pretty huge but I don't see them making anything like that for Syria because of the time frame. They didn't have any major wars inside the country in the 60s, 70s or 80s did they?

 

 

Mord.

 

[sburke]

38 minutes ago, Mord said:

Divided Ground: Middle East Conflict 1948-1973?

That'd be one gigantic map!

1 Hex = 250 Meters (820 Feet)
6.43 Hexes = 1 Mile
4 Hexes = 1 Kilometer

You could always make your own, cut them up into sectors. The Nam master map is gonna be pretty huge but I don't see them making anything like that for Syria because of the time frame. They didn't have any major wars inside the country in the 60s, 70s or 80s did they?

 

 

Mord.

 

depends on what they do.  The original middle east had a peace for Galilee expansion that included the US 2nd Cav.  The new series has a campaign on Algeria, but I doubt the map covers the entire No Africa.  I guess it really depends on their overall plan.  The engine doesn't seem to have much map limitation so they could cover Yemen war etc.

[Mord]

15 minutes ago, sburke said:

depends on what they do.  The original middle east had a peace for Galilee expansion that included the US 2nd Cav.  The new series has a campaign on Algeria, but I doubt the map covers the entire No Africa.  I guess it really depends on their overall plan.  The engine doesn't seem to have much map limitation so they could cover Yemen war etc.

As far as I know a dlc is planned for the Iran-Iraq War. I haven't seen anything beyond that. They have a lot of stuff lined up but I can't see them all coming to fruition, not at the rate they are going.

Mord.

[Erwin]

On 5/12/2021 at 6:03 PM, Mord said:

Campaign Series: Middle East 1948-1985

It's mainly the Arab-Israeli War, but includes Britain, France, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon. Eventually they are supposed to add an Iran Iraq dlc. It's a heavily updated version of the old Tiller Campaign Series. They are supposed to release Campaign Series Vietnam this year. You can find info on Slitherine/Matrix.

The other screens are Field of Glory I.

Mord.

I like the idea.  Not sure if the game has appropriate units, but don't forget that the Brits were fighting an insurgency vs the Israeli unconventionals who were fighting in order to create Israel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine

 

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

I like the idea.  Not sure if the game has appropriate units, but don't forget that the Brits were fighting an insurgency vs the Israeli unconventionals who were fighting in order to create Israel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine

 

Plus some bother in the Canal Zone, trouble with the natives in Aden and South Arabia, some proxy fighting in Yemen, fun and games in Oman, the small matter of Suez and a few other bits and pieces depending on how you cast the Middle East net.

[Duckman]

Very happy to see CM Cold War on Steam.

Now let's do the WWII titles! :-)

Edited November 19, 2021 by Duckman