Afghanistan '11 Is Great Enough For Its Own Thread

Also this should be a period, not a comma.

Please edit ASAP!!!

He’s not going to fix the rest of the title? That’s hilarious but not exactly surprising.

What’s wrong with rps? they have generally pretty good articles.

thanks for posting about this game! It looks fascinating, and I just skipped right past it on RPS the other day lol

To me? Nothing really. I’ve just stopped reading all preview games media in the last few years. Tim Stone is about the sole writer aside from Tom that I read regularly.

Others, however, have bones to pick with RPS for reasons I won’t expand (because I don’t personally share, but get).

This game lacks basic functionality from Vietnam 65: The ability to see a unit’s orders. Kind of unplayable this way, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

This game lacks basic functionality from Vietnam 65: The ability to see a unit’s orders. Kind of unplayable this way, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

You hit on the one thing that really has been bothering me. The other thing was the keyboard shortcuts were changed around and I had to actually read the manual to figure out the new arrangement. I know right, what’s that all about?

Tom Mc

I haven’t played it yet, but just from watching the stream I’m very interested.

It’s nice to see a wargame that finally takes logistics seriously and doesn’t just treat it as an afterthought. I expect a lot more interesting gameplay to come out of making decisions about logistics than rolling to see if armor got penetrated. And it actually lets you build roads! I haven’t seen a wargame that let me do that since Zulu War. More games should let you interact with the map like this and not just treat it as a surface to play on.

The “hearts & minds” stuff does seem naive to me. There’s an assumption that the entire population will potentially support you if you just visit them enough and build some infrastructure. The game would be more relevant to Afghanistan if it admitted that some part of the population will never be won over to your side.

This game has me fascinated. Is it pretty serious in strategy and tactical depth? It is certainly well liked - is this a “grognard wargame”?

I don’t remember that in Vietnam '65 at all, unless it was patched in way after release.[quote=“richardlgaines, post:19, topic:129039”]
Is it pretty serious in strategy and tactical depth? It is certainly well liked - is this a “grognard wargame”?
[/quote]

No real tactical depth. Lots of strategic depth, though.

It was there on release day and is there to this day. Guess you didn’t play it much! :)

Edit: “orders” meaning destination, at least, as well as the ability to execute those orders, selecting each unit you wish in whatever order you desire. Completely missing from Afghanistan '11. And completely necessary in a game about logistics. Refund in process. Strongly recommend against purchasing at this time – no one will be able to tolerate playing through the campaign with the game in its current state. (A literally accurate statement at this time, based on Steam achievement percentages…)

Edit 2: Forget “playing through the campaign” – zero percent of players on Steam have completed “Operation Achilles,” the fifth campaign mission. Or five skirmish missions.

Richard, it’s not at all a grognard game! On the contrary, in fact. Like Vietnam '65, this is doing something very different from the usual wargames. In fact, it sometimes feels like a Transport Tycoon game or city builder, especially with the new nationbuilding systems.

-Tom

He’s talking about a unit’s path popping up when you mouse over it so you can see where it’s going. I’ve been playing a ton of Afghanistan '11 and I didn’t even notice it wasn’t in there! It doesn’t make the game “unplayable” at all – I have several hours that say otherwise – but it would be nice to have that to help get into the gameplay flow of moving your units around.

-Tom

I mean, isn’t that already the case? The whole game you’ve got taliban raining down on you destroying things and placing IED’s. It’s only the villages (whom are presumably filled with normal civilians) which are helping you.

It starts to get difficult when you set up convoys though… You can’t see where each one is going easily and may have to reassign their commands. Actually, that’s the case with a lot of units. Also, does clicking them erase the previous command? It is a bit confusing.

I think the strategy part of the game is excellent, but it has a subpar and unfinished feeing interface and a lot of little nagging issues like the past orders one.

Agreed, Kyle.

While normally “unplayable” might be hyperbole, I think in this case it’s empirically evident. Just a statement of fact. 48 hours after release (and, what, a week after it became available to reviewers?), literally no players on Steam are playing it enough to complete 5 skirmishes or campaign missions. People can heap all the praise they want upon it – actions speak louder than words.

Also, not for nothing, but I popped into V65 last night to refresh my memory about A11’s missing features and… V65’s graphics are better. More easily readable and vivid.

Aside from a factual error (it’s been less than 24 hours since release as I write this), I hardly think that’s enough time to learn a new system and complete 5 scenarios (9 if you count the tutorials).

I can see this is going to be a polarizing game. So be it. But since when is quality always determined by popularity?

It’s been more than 48 hours, and the most diehard of fans haven’t done 5 scenarios! I’m not even talking about shlubs like me. I’m talking about gung-ho, HARDCORE AFGHANISTAN 11 PLAYERS! Why are none of them playing it? Heck, I guess I’m not a shlub. I’m among the elite 7.6% who have completed 3 scenarios (that would be 3 tutorial scenarios in my case, I suppose).

Quality is not always determined by popularity, but I would think that a great game would be played by somebody.

You’re right. For some reason I was thinking it was released yesterday. Doesn’t change my opinion, though

Is there a difference from skirmish and campaign games? The achievement is for 5 skirmish games if that makes a difference.

Anyway, it’s certainly playable because it has a “mostly positive” Steam rating. Some are complaining about bugs and the controls though. Most people seem to be enjoying it.