Looks like the Battlefront developers have refused to ever leave their crappy engine with the miserable mouse/keyboard scheme that was more work than fun, so I don’t have any desire to play their titles. But I want to play a game like it. Is there anything out there that fits the bill? Or is moderately comparable?
This should probably be in the Games forum. The only similar game I can think of is Graviteam Tactics. I can’t comment about the control scheme though. Someone on this forum has posted quite a bit about it, can’t recall who though. I’m sure there’s a thread.
I have Graviteam and felt it was really clunky and difficult to use. I’d settle for anything in the same field at this point LOL. The one thing I liked about Combat Mission was being able to go from top down to right on the ground along with the troops. Really made you feel like you were in the battle.
This was gonna be my suggestion as well. Apparently once you grok with the interface it’s amazing.
Maybe the Theatre of War series? I never played it but I know it’s a little bit more action-y than the CM games. Also getting a bit long in the tooth now.
Call to Arms has a hint of the same drama, but it’s a lot more Michael Bay than Combat Mission, and comes with a fair bit of jank.
It lets you switch to first person on any of your units, but in some instances where I’ve tried, I’ve had some random CTDs and stuff. It’s janked up pretty good!
Might not be what you wish for Jeff, because it’s anime and stuff, but Vandal Hearts was that PlayStation “srpg” as they are called, that features wego turns resolving after issuing orders. It had also nice ideas to make up for the potential whiffing feast of a bunch of melee units being given blind orders.
Well, and it’s gamepad powered ;)
Hmm, Wikipedia makes it sound like a standard srpg:
Turns are on a side-by-side basis; the player moves all of their characters before the AI is allowed to take its turn.
I guess that is a little ambiguous.
Oh, hmm, it says this about the sequel:
Combat in Vandal Hearts II is done using a new Dual-Turn System, stated as being an Active Time Battle system for tactical RPGs. The dual-turn system permits both the player and the computer to move one unit on the battlemap simultaneously.
One-unit wego?
Regiments is closer to what I’d like, but it’s not available. The test demo they ran was pretty fun.
What is is about CM that you want exactly? Is it the more crunchy simulation realism, or the WEGO system?
Most of the common alternatives have been called out, but if you are after the awesome WEGO system, the cupboard is frustratingly bare, even after all these years.
Oh, I did forget about Panzer Command Osfront though! That has WEGO and was well received, but it’s a little long in the tooth now.
For WW2 tactical combat, Steel Division has replaced CM for me - SD1 for Western Front and SD2 for Eastern Front.
It is real time only, but Eugen have added a lot of QoL features like being able to slow down time, and being able to give general orders to groups of units that takes a lot of the micro out.
Yes and yes. Also, being able to put yourself via camera right down in the action to see how things unfold. I prefer wego, but real-time or classic turn-based is fine because I don’t think anyone bothers to do wego with modern or WWII combat anymore. I should have mentioned, realistic combat with traditionally troops and armor from the 20th century.
Last time I played one of their games all the units were so tiny so it was difficult to really feel the battle. Is that better in those?
You can zoom down in SD. But you will find yourself zoomed out a lot more.
Are you playing WARNO by Eugen?
Been waiting for the beta stage to progress a bit more first. I have been playing a lot of SD2 which has content coming out the wazoo.
Ooh, I think I get a point!
Modern, WEGO, and with a comparable level of detail to the Combat Mission games - I present you, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
i’m interested. i thought the early games were marvels, fun even for non wargamers (i even did the lower interface art for 2 of those games). but when they went modern, the control scheme changed? is that it?
Me too. I don’t have the patience to fight their horrible janky keyboard mouse controls anymore. The interface looked great however!