First Impressions

[TimSmith]

Downloaded the demo at 6:15 est.

I have played both Axis and Allied sides on intermediate and +1 bonus to computer.

This is an outstanding game!! Was handed my hat by the French in my first attempt as the Germans but figured things out and took Paris by August in my second go.

My only complaint is the game plays too fast. Is that something that we can change in the editor?

Wondering what others think?

[Panzer_Meyer]

Here my thoughs, from another thread:

Awesome demo, here is my little AAR, no pics though, sorry!

So I inaved through the north, the dutch surrender on turn 2, by about turn 4 I got Paris surounded, but it takes another 2 turns for me to finnally capture. During the battle for France, I loose a battleship and a submarine in the sea battling the Brittish.

After the Fall of France, I declare war on the new Vichy goverment and take the rest of France. After the fall of Vichy I possotion my troops on the spanish border and declare war on Spain. I invade Spain and take the capital. But the Demo ened with my 2nd Panzer Army in Madrid.

It was a lot of fun!!

2nd small AAR:

I played the campaign from as the Allies and damn was it fun. I transfered the Corps and Army from Canada and all the 3 remaining Corps from Britian to the French mainland. Thanx to doing this I held up the Germans at the French border. the Germans did roll right through the dutch, man got no where close to Paris.

I had it set on the default dificulty setting.

Now, who is up for a little PBEM action?! If you are e-mail me, rommel22us@hotmail.com

And my thoughs on it:

Ok, after playing the demo twice, I think it's awesome, axcept a few minor things.

1)I have a unit, next to an enemy unit and I tell it to attack the enemy unit I can't move my unit away afterwards. I mean if the unit has been next to that enemy unit for the whole turn, I moved it into possition from the previous turn. So after I tell my unit to attck, I want to move it awya to make room for another unit so that it can futher attack that enemy unit.

2) Ok, I move a unit toward an enemy unit. But I decide to click on another unit. So I come back to the unit I moved and want to attack the enemy unit i moved it to, so I click on it and try to attack the enemy unit. But I can't. I won't let me attack after I deselected it. Why is that, imho, you should be able to deselct the unit and be able to come back to it later and still be able to attack.

3) When I invaded France, I cut off 2 French Armies in the Maginot line. I attacked them, and got them below strenght. But they get replacments, even though they are completly cut off! Is that right, I though cut off units cannot recieve replacments.

Thank you, and this is an awesome game.

[Edge37]

I agree totally, the game is a lot of fun. It took me until the last turn to get France to surrender my first go around...

I also agree with the speed comment, is there anyway to slow the pace down during the combat phase and provide more detailed battle action reporting? Slow it down please...

Great Game! I'll definitely purchase the full version.... Woohoo!

[Shep]

First time out as the Axis: France falls in mid or late August. I try strat bombing vs. Britain and get nowhere.

Italy makes little progress in Egypt.

Second time: France falls in early July. I try lots of strat bombing vs. London and get absolutely nowhere. This must be hard or something. I had three fighters and three bombers going turn after turn with no result at all.

Italy gets to the verge of taking Egypt, using a HQ, fighter, and inf army, plus its navy. Sank the brit carrier.

Anyone have any thoughts on strat bombing?

[Thermopylae]

The Low countries fell in a week, the french by August! Malta lies besieged (I can't figure out how do a direct amphibious landing) and the minor nations flock to my cause! (Yugoslavia suffers a pro-allied coup, but tis a minor detail) The RAF, after a month and a half long air battle, no longer functions. The Home fleet scurries away from the might of the luftwaffe! Two armies and a tank group land in southern England..and...and...the demo ends! Gaaaaaaarrrrghhhhhh..........

[ParaBellum]

Took the low countries and France and invaded great Britain!

I took London, got a message that the english government retreated to Manchester and then the scenario ended.

Looks like Operation Sealion was a winner!

[ May 20, 2002, 10:00 PM: Message edited by: ParaBellum ]

[Panzer_Meyer]

Looks like people went after Britian right away, I invaded Spain again, played for the 3rd time. This time I got Spain to surrender. And I also captured Gibraltar. After that, I would go after Britian, securing Spain gives me more points and gibraltar.

[TimSmith]

More things I like....

I think the AI appears very, very good. It is actually fun to play the Allied side!!! AI manages its forces well and is making good strategic decisions. From the post so far there a numerous options for either side to take.

The impressive things so far is trying to balance aggressive play (as Allied player) without losing the British navy. The AI has been very active with both navies as the Axis. Italians drove me from the Med. (lost carrier and both heavy ships)

Also the experience versus reinforcement level. Losses have a great impact when you lose experience with reinforcements. You can go from having some experience to none after reinforcing a unit. This will be something to learn to balance.

[acrashb]

I'm glad the demo is time-limited. Otherwise I'd be up all night.

Down to details:

- in the upper-right-hand window (the one where you drag the focus box around to see the world), when my pointer goes off the window, I have to re-click to re-acquire the focus box. Frustrating.

- the "undo" key should be disabled for two-player play of all kinds. This was a huge problem with Panzer General, as 'gamey' players would move, undo, move a little farther, and so on to avoid stumbling into the enemy - not realistic.

- I'll join the chorus and ask for combined attacks - it does complicate the interface a little, but would result in true 'blitzkrieg' possiblities.

- I too surrounded the Maginot line, only to find it getting reinforced! Is there any strategic advantage to cutting off your opponent? In the end I just ignored it and struck Paris.

Those are all the issues I can find for now. It's surprisingly addictive - I can't wait to get my hands on the manual and min/max my resource allocation!

[Shep]

Greatest frustration:

The northern limit of the map completely prevents German naval sorties to the north. Even subs don't get through. Also, even with fog of war on, naval units are automatically detected when they come adjacent to each other. I'd like to see that possibility reduced.

All in all I'm pretty impressed, and I believe Hubert and Co. have done a fine job.

[Panzer Leader]

I went after Russia in November! Never even made it to Kiev though... They are tough and get LOTS of points- enough to reconstitute their army every turn anyways. I think I'll try Spain.

[Hubert Cater]

Just scanning through some of the posts...

Maginot has its own supply value like a city etc which is at a minimum = 5. This explains why fortified units can restrengthen themselves, although it will vary depending on the situation and current supply rules.

Hubert

[Wolfpack]

Well, my first try on default settings, I took out France by mid July, then invaded Vichy. Took the rest of france in one turn, and had the Italians move into and capture Algeria with the help of the navy. Invaded Spain and took it, Had to transfer half my army to Poland to take out Yugoslavia since they decided to be unfriendly. Took Gibralter, then the demo ended. Played as the Allies and was holding out in September on the French border, but then it crashed.

The one problem I've had with the AI so far is that, while it really does well in the beginning as the Germans keeping units alive and combining attacks, once you damage the units a bit, he spends too much time reinforcing and doesn't take enough chances to really punch some holes in my lines. I held out in Belgium until mid august because I moved my BBs down and bombarded his units on the coast, so they would go doen to 8 or so and reinforce, thereby losing their attack, so he was only getting one shot at Belgium each turn. That one attack usually took the army down to 3 or 4 so another attack probably would have been enough to take him out. This happened a lot, where he would only attack with one or two units because one was lowered a couple of points, instead of risking a third attack and really having a good chance to kill my armies instead of just wounding them so they could reinforce next turn. Other than that, I'm really enjoying the heck out of it...this is #1 or #2 on my "to buy" list. (Depending on whether this or CMBB comes out first.)

[Ancient One]

This game is a masterpiece, combining the best elements of Clash of Steel and Panzer General.

I was able to conquer the UK as the Axis one game. Spain joined me a couple turns after the fall of London, unfortunately the US entered the war soon after, and the USSR entered on the last turn. There was a large force of Americans on their way to reinforce the British, but after the UK surrendered they turned around and set up a defence in Canada.

[pzgndr]

First game was as Allies so I could watch what the AI was doing. I also thought the AI was OK. Held France through September without doing much more than reinforcing losses on the line. Once the Germans started breaking through in August, the end came quickly. Higher settings for AI should result in more aggressive play. The interface was fine and it played well.

I was surprised by a German naval attack on a British fleet in port - more surprised that such an attack is permitted. The Germans were ineffective and lost their fleet next turn. Not a good move for the AI.

The spending decisions in SC will be interesting. It going to take some time to figure out the optimal balance between reinforcing, buying new units, and research. Overall, it's a very nice game to play.

[Elmo]

Loaded at home and work and enjoying this one so far. Playing the Allies on both systems and I'm doing better at work after learning some things the hard way at home.

Question - How can I tell how many turns are left in the demo? Will the final version display something like "turn 2 of 2000"? Thanks.

[Lah]

Great fun to play, now I want the full version!

But I did find the cost of subs compared to their effectiveness didn't seem worth the purchase. The other naval forces also seem costly for what they can do.

Else everthing is fine and balanced, looking forward to the full PBEM games.

[Scott Udell]

"I was surprised by a German naval attack on a British fleet in port - more surprised that such an attack is permitted. The Germans were ineffective and lost their fleet next turn. Not a good move for the AI."

Heh--I tried the same thing myself for kicks and grins, and had about as much luck!

Really, really enjoyed the hour+ I spent with the demo last night--I don't think a demo has ever absorbed me this much (although both CMBO and AA demos were close). It was a good thing it was time limited, else I too would've played late into the night (and the hour+ of play was much more than I expected to get). I really like the balance here--not too detailed, not too simplistic. Very slick, can't wait to try it PBEM as it should be near perfect (no spending an hour + plotting one turn). Great job!

[[Wiking]]

What difficulty you playing? I used the default and took France almost immediately, still left me time to conquer Yugoslavia, Sea Lion could not be completed due to lack of air cover (those nasty Allied Spitfires!!).

Rommel, you up for a PBEM game (or anyone else!!!!!!)?

Mail me at Empire@email.si !

Now just to update the damn site....those frames are eating me alive!

[Elmo]

bump

Originally posted by Elmo:

Question - How can I tell how many turns are left in the demo? Will the final version display something like "turn 2 of 2000"? Thanks.

[ May 21, 2002, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Elmo ]

[Aloid]

Originally posted by SS_Obergruppenführer:

What difficulty you playing? I used the default and took France almost immediately, still left me time to conquer Yugoslavia, Sea Lion could not be completed due to lack of air cover (those nasty Allied Spitfires!!).

On the same setting, I pulled off Sealion with little problem. In fact, the British Navy played little roll for some reason. I would have expected every ship afloat to be there.

The Germans had no supporting Navy for the operation at all, and still pulled it off.

Hubert, would it make any sense to allow Naval units, with extra action points, to have follow-on attacks? The Britsh had two battleships and a cruiser, against no opposition, and could only dispatch a very small group of my transports.

I assume that moving an Army or Corp around taks a lot of ships, so in reality there was a lot of sinking going on, but it just felt too easy.

Also, I had no problems embarking any unit I wanted to, because I saved points for it. Is it a myth that Germany didn't have much transport capability, and could the price of transport be made a little higher? I don't know that facts on what Germany could or could not accomplish in this regard.

Also, the old convention of an "overrun" attack might serve this game well, in situations where the defender is a one point, low effectiveness unit. It's no fun having a full strength unit wait a week because someone left a few trucks and ambulances on a road in front of them

Saving the best for last...

You guys have done a great job with this game! The scale gives one a feeling of global importance (power), the play is easy, but it makes you think!

Will the commercial release include the Pacific as well? heh!

I thank you, but my wife doesn't...

Aloid

[dragoon19]

This is super fun. played Germans 3 times and its great. I captured paris reasonably fast moved all my units out east and attacked Russia in the early Spring. Then Finland joined the fun. Managed to finish of a some russian units and reach 3-5 hex into russia on a baltic to southen Poland front. Almost in Riga.

Give me 6 weeks of summer and I will be replacing tracks on my PZ-I in Moscow

[Mannheim Tanker]

I tried out the demo, and it's certainly fun. I was disappointed, however, that it didn't really add much that I can't already do in Europe Aflame. In fact, it's missing quite a few aspects of that are available in EA, as I suspected. The replay factor probably won't be too high, as your options appear to be fairly limited.

It's a fun beer and pretzels game, which is in its favor if you're looking for a quick pseudo-strategic level wargame. If you're looking to recreate WWII beyond an Axis and Allies level game, you'll probably be disappointed, as I give it about a 3 on the realism scale. I might still buy it, however, for when I'm in the mood for a quick WWII fix.

[pzgndr]

Bumped, just for nostalgia.