I just want a WCS: Tanks!-style game that isn’t 25 years old.
Or maybe a modern Steel Beasts.
TOAW IV scenario list by dev recommendation for solo, PBEM, or both: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4378959
Oh, probably the final patch for Ultimate General: Civil War.
I’ve at least looked at most of the scenarios in that list. There’s only 3 that I consider halfway decent.
Israel 48
This one deserves an award for the most poorly-researched wargame scenario of all time. If you cross into Jordan, the Soviets intervene against you. You know, with that capability to project power over long distances that the Soviets totally had in 1948. And Jordan would definitely have loved Soviet troops to protect them. It’s not like they had British troops there already.
When I see crap like that on their list of recommended scenarios, it doesn’t give me a lot of hope in the rest of them.
Geez, I have to look at that one, Miguk. That sounds like not just bad research, but ham-handed design, as in, “shit, we can’t figure out how to stop the Israeli player from cheesing a win, so, um, I know, let’s throw in the old Soviet intervention card from the 1973 scenarios!”
Haha! A lot of people have accused me of selling out to the detail based on my review of War in the East! And maybe they have something there. But my biggest endorsement of War in the East is that - unlike TOAW - it plays like an actual Eastern Front game.
This is the other problem with “system designs”: they are only as good as the system AND the scenario. How many terrible Advanced Squad Leader scenarios are there? Tons. The game shines in the hands of good scenario designers. Absent that, the game can seem awful.
Well, for years the whole TOAW model has been to rely on fans to do all the work, and that means, well, you get a huge variety in quality.
DLC coming for FoG II: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/716/details/Field.of.Glory.II.Immortal.Fire
Can they at least come up with some new names for the expansions?
The annual Matrix Christmas PDF has been posted. Some good deals include
- CMANO - $27 ($53 off).
- DC: Warsaw to Paris - $10 (a steal at that price).
- Distant Worlds - $20 (the best space 4X of all time).
- Grigsby War in the East - $25 ($55 off)
- Victory & Glory: Napoleon - $10 (the cheapest its been)
Victory & Glory Napoleon is one of the best games of 2016 and a steal at 10 Quatloos.
Is Victory and Glory (or Hannibal) suitable for noobs? They look somewhat ‘boardgamey’ which made me think I might be able to wrap my head around them.
I enjoyed Unity of Command and Battle Academy if you’re looking for my definition of ‘noob’. 🙂
Annoyingly, V&G is one of those games where you fire it up and start the tutorial, and it just gives you a link to a youtube video. But they’re good to check out to get a feel for what’s involved.
I ended up not really liking Victory & Glory (despite being a huge fan of the Hannibal game). The games seem to always play out the same, and not very historical. It’s just making monster stacks and hoping you can wipe out the enemy before they get your capital.
Thanks, will check the tutorial videos out.
The Hannibal game is more appealing to me thematically so if V&G isn’t a case of “they fixed everything that didn’t work in the previous game” then maybe I’ll lean in that direction (once I’ve determined if either game passes my scope/complexity test).
They are, which is one of the things I like about them
The combat in V&G is a little more interesting (they have the left/center/right/reserves thing), but the system seems to work better for Hannibal, where moving monster stacks around is actually historical.
On Victory and Glory, I liked it but I did fall off and haven’t played it too recently. I also appreciated the board game feel.
For the Steam Sale I picked up War in the West. I’m still futzing with the intro Husky scenario and trying to figure the basics out. I’ve had War in the East and was similarly tied up with its intro scenario as well. I often play the old Third Reich PC game and that’s about the level of detail I like. I think the War in the… series models things at a slightly too fine level for me for the operational / strategic level you play at. Strategic Command: War in Europe has been scratching that itch pretty well.
Tom Mc
Both games favor monster stacks because your main advantage is having the best general in the game(though in V&G Davout is also better than all the coalition generals and he can lead a secondary stack).