OK, so here is what would make me pull the trigger and purchase this (as an old naval grognard back to the Harpoon and Grey Seas, Grey Skies (SimCan) days:
Can I set up a scenario with a number of submarines on one side and, say, a CV task force on the other. I set up the composition of each and can pick either side to play. However, I can also set up a “percentage of inclusion” factor such that I really don’t know what I will be facing. For example: I am commanding the sub force, I get intel there is a CV task force in the area, I begin to hunt them. I know there is at least one CV in the TF - but there may be two. I know there are some number of destroyers in the screen, but I don’t know the exact number. Etc. In other words, I can be surprised each time I play the scenario.
I actually was able to do this in the old text based Grey Seas, Grey Skies simulation because it was written in Basic (oh, the days) and I was able to add a percentage of inclusion subroutine in which I could set up the percentage chance of each ship being included each time I played. And that simple option resulted in some very sweat inducing gaming sessions.
Yeah, back in my days of covering sims for CGW and CGM I discussed that with the developer at an E3 and he thought it was a cool idea and included it. I kidded him that I should have received development credit but then couldn’t review it. ;)
Yes. You can also randomize the starting locations and also the mission tasking for any of the units present, so that their mission-driven behavior will be unpredictable.
LOL 0% percent chance, I’m afraid. Those days are gone, but I’m glad I had my 15 minutes of internet fame with the Follies – spiteful, snarky blogging before blogging was a thing :)
Damn you’re good. You must have some sort of “Command-sense” to figure out where there’s a CMANO forum thread anywhere on the internet to answer questions ;)
Dmitrius - thrilled to see you’re here and very active on the forums. I’m what you’d call a wannabe gear head. I love to tinker and lay but not as dedicated as other fans. To that end, though I enojyed all naval command games to come out I may not enjoy this, or it might turn out I love it. But at such a huge price point with no demo, there will not be a sale. Matrix needs to realize there are a lot of peope who are interested and could buy just to tinker, but won’t because of the pricing model or the chance to figure out how it fares with our playstyle.
ie. Matrix is permanently limiting and maybe even shrinking their demographic by not offering lower prices for non-hardcore players. There’s a lot of games I have on Steam I’d never have purchased if not for price. Just something to think about.
I loved, loved, loved Harpoon and even Harpoon 2. I was perfectly content to play scenarios in real-time over the course of a few days. I’m a lot older now, and its rare for me to get hundreds of hours in any game, let alone a super-niche product that has a learning curve that looks like the Matterhorn. I really want this but $80 just isn’t going to happen.
$80 is also a bit too steep for my tastes, but if someone redoes the fictional modern day US Civil War scenario from Harpoon, I’m in. CVBG vs CVBG, but the North has stealth fighters!
We are aware that the price is considered too high for some people and it is something for which we are discussing actions with our publisher. One such action was the sale you saw last week on Steam. We do want Command to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Could you explain how that is done? I.e. provide a step by step procedure of how you would set up a submarine group vs. a CV TF with the uncertainity for various ships? Just to give me a feel for how easy/hard it would be to do so.
I’m so glad Jeff asked about this, as I’m also curious about the possibilities.
Say, for instance, I wanted to set up a scenario where I have a fixed task force accompanying a carrier. I need to get from point A to point B. Can I set up a scenario in which anywhere from 0-10 submarines of varying capabilities and nationalities will be patrolling the waters between me and my destination? For instance, can I set it up so I don’t know if there will be any contacts, or whether they’ll be friendly or hostile?
And if so, as Jeff asked, can you tell me a bit about how complicated the process of setting up this scenario would be?
Yes you can, it’s not complicated at all if you can get the differences between events, triggers and action straight. This tutorial from Baloogan shows you how https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfvaW35qmC4&list=PLgRuKky0mojaEp-JrGe4sPpbZMHiTKcIU&index=1 (skip to 10min mark where he starts setting up the random mission). To have random TF’s drop into a zone, you will have to play around with the % chance of each event occurring.
