That was awesome. I spent all weekend playing the campaign, to the exclusion of sleeping and eating. Just one more turn!
I was able to form the pocket. There was only one problem:
No one was in it!
I thought I almost had it, but the AI bailed out at the last second. It turned into an impossible grind near Lysanka-Zvenigorodka. To make matters worse, the AI eventually had strong full powered units thanks to the extra reinforcements I gave it. We were almost even on units destroyed! I still won by 5000 points. But it was mostly from objectives. So I wish the AI had played according to the storyline a bit more. Maybe I’ll play the Germans on the short Last Stand scenario, where the pocket is already formed.
I definitely understand wargames now. It was great to read about the battle and then see it come to life in the game. I had a hell of a time making progress in the west, just like the Soviets did. All the strong spearhead units were there. And the German reinforcements went straight to Lysanka, but no further. Plus I think I like the mechanics themselves – flanking, figuring out how to get overruns, and destruction in general. It felt exactly the same as Unity of Command, other than fiddling with the combat advisor to figure out exactly where to put my units to get the best odds.
Canuck
1882
I recommend Battles in Italy if you haven’t go it. It’s a great game and it has tons of user made scenarios which tends to be lacking for this series.
I really like Korsun Pocket and I don’t mind the engine, but this might be the last game I play in this series. I don’t want to add a ton of old wargames to my backlog. I’d rather play a small variety of classics, and then keep up with modern-looking wargames (if any good ones come out).
Eventually I will come back and ask people which classic operational wargame I should try next (hopefully with a good book to go with it). But first I want to play this (winSPWW2 edition):
spelk
1884
Schwerpunkt, schwerpunkt, schwerpunkt! :)
http://schwerpunkt.wargamer.com/
I can handle old pixel graphics, but old Windows interfaces might be a step too far…
Gary Grigsby’s finest hour. No other computer wargame has ever come close to Steel Panther’s mix of grognardism and accessibility.
Which one is that? Google is not getting a direct hit…
Ahem:
“Steel Panthers is Gary Grigsby’s finest hour.”
:)
spelk
1890
Deffo keep an eye out for the new Schwerpunkt game World War II - War in Europe, it’s going to be a distillation and evolution on all the previous games. The interface isn’t really a massive barrier to be honest, I’d say it was no more hostile/unpleasant than any of Tiller’s games. Definitely worth a look if you’re wanting a “bit more”, coming off a Unity of Command rush. And if you’re willing to dabble in SSG’s overtly colourful offerings, I’m Schwerpunkt’s games are a breath of fresh air to the eyes :)
Tim, I’ve enjoyed your reports on your dabble with Korsun Pocket, and it’s sparked off another burst of enthusiasm to go back to the world of brightly coloured chits… thanks for that… I dug up a help for beginners link that I always keep safe, for anyone who has been similarly enthused to try out an SSG operational game.
Harrybanana penned this wall of text to help beginners with the Decisive Battles series of SSG games, but it was posted in the Battles in Italy forum over at Run5/SSG’s forums.
http://ssg.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3784
Plus some good info on SSG’s site too:
http://ssg.com.au/?page=articles
That wall of text has some good tips but it might be just as daunting for new players as the game itself! Reminds me of helpful veterans trying to explain Dark Souls. Here’s my very simple high-level approach for easing into Korsun Pocket. spelk, you might not need this, but it might come in handy for lurkers and other people curious about this game.
- Download the patch from Matrix if you haven’t already.
- Play the guided tutorial. It’s in a PDF. It will teach you pretty much everything about the game.
3a. Read the manual to pick up anything you missed.
3b. At the same time, play the small meeting engagement scenario, Wiking Whiteout. There are only a handful of units and objectives. Try it a couple times to get used to the interface and mechanics on your own.
- Play the 2nd Front scenario on the east side of the pocket. I chose Russians because they can make a lot of progress.
- Play the 1st Front scenario on the west side of the pocket. I chose Germans because the Russians don’t make as much progress, and it’s easier to defend.
- Play other small scenarios or dive into the 48 turn campaign like I did.
Turn 1 might seem a little daunting with all the units. Consider this high-level strategy:
The scenario designer provides hints about where to go. When you begin, press the U key to remove units and the N key to display map names. You want to take the cities that have your flag on them. The cities with the enemy flag will usually give them alert points, which means they’ll get additional reinforcements. Ignore them for now.
Now that you have a general overview of where not to go, press the I key to display town icons. Right click and highlight your flag to see the victory point schedule for each town. This will give a hint about what is possible to achieve. If you get a lot of VPs by taking a town on turn 2, then there must be some way to make it there by then. You won’t necessarily make it, but it’s a good idea to try. On the other hand, if there is a town nearby that gives VPs until turn 30, that’s a hint that you probably don’t need to worry about it yet.
You have more details about where to go, and now you have to figure out which units to attack to break through and get there. Turn units back on if you haven’t already, and turn on the combat advisor with the O key. Look for green numbers, which indicate overruns. (Or at least look for high odds like 9-1 and 10-1.) Click on the enemy unit and the combat advisor will tell you the units you need to achieve the overrun. This is the fiddlly part of the game. Sometimes you have to scoot things around quite a bit to get the odds that are displayed. Usually it requires artillery, which you might have to move from another part of the front. And sometimes it exposes your units to additional danger, or breaks your division. To be really precise, you have to move one unit, turn the combat advisor off and on to refresh it, and make sure the odds are still the same. If they aren’t, you moved that unit to the wrong place.
Like I said, it’s very fiddly but at least it gives you some idea about what is vulnerable at the start of a turn. As you play, you’ll develop your own approach and naturally learn about some of the tactical lessons in the game. Remember the AI will punish mistakes, but you should be able to rack up a lot of VPs against it. So there’s no rush.
If you play War in the East, you may want to try out this amazing user-made map. It is truly amazing. What a beautiful piece of work.
Oh yeah, Lost Battles is out. But check out that freaking map.
vyshka
1894
He has done great work with the Tiller titles as well. That is a beautiful map though. Anyone making a wargame should hire him to do the art for maps.
vyshka
1895
This week’s Matrix sale is Time of Fury and Panzer Command: Ostfront. Really tempted with Panzer Command at $19.99
Canuck
1896
Glad that Matrix is continuing the sale. I’m just waiting for game that I want and don’t have. Panzer Command is an interesting Combat Mission style game. I picked up Time of Fury from Gamersgate (I think) for much cheaper than that.
If they have Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear for 50% off then I will be all over that.
I couldn’t get past the Conflict of Heroes demo. It reminds me a lot of playing early 3D games from the late 90s / early 00s era. They’re harder to go back to than even earlier 2D games. Conflict of Heroes wasn’t terrible looking, but it was just unappealing enough that I bounced off it. Yet I can play Korsun Pocket from 2003 just fine.
On a related note, does Battle Academy have any hardcore cred, or is it pretty light and casual? I’ve seen it pop up lately on some iOS game blogs I read.
Canuck
1898
It’s pretty casual but it’s a fantastic game.
JoshL
1899
Conflict of heroes got a bit of a visual upgrade in the last patch. Higher-res counters and maps, I think, which helped. Still, I can’t get excited about playing against the AI. Maybe someday I’ll muster the time an energy to find an online opponent.
Battle Academy didn’t click with me, but I can’t say why. Maybe it was the comic book style, or the use of squares instead of hexes. There’s a PC demo, though, so you can check it out.
robc04
1900
It’s been awhile since I reviewed it (and played it), but it has enough factors in it to be interesting - line of sight, morale, terrain, hard and soft attack values (I think). My main complaint was a lack of some feedback so I modded some in. I think a lot of people like it for multiplayer, which I didn’t try. I think they hid some details to try and make it less intimidating. I would say it is less detailed than Korsun Pocket from the little I know about Korsun Pocket. I only played the PC version. They have also updated it a lot I think since I put up my review.
Conflict of Heroes is a good game too. I reviewed that one too. I didn’t find it visually unappealing. If you can look at a game like Korsun Pocket and not CoH, you and I have different ideas of what ugly is :-). I think they updated it to make it more true to the boardgame movement rules too. I need to fire these two games up again sometime.
