SGS wargames: Pacific D-Day, Heia Safari, Taiping Rebellion, etc

Games
1

This uses the SGS D-Day in the Pacific System:

I am playing the Beta, and it is still in ongoing development, but it is coming along nicely.

The game begins with Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, with the option to include Shikoku , followed by the invasion of Honshu, Operation Cornet.

With careless play it is quite easy for the American player to sustain crippling casualties that lead to defeat. Been there done that. Good use of air support and naval bombardment is a must for victory.

Some screenshots:

Much more as we get closer to release. An excellent book on this what if:

Hell to Pay

2

Coming this spring from SGS: the amphibious invasions of Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. I am involved in the play testing. Good player games. They remind me of old SPI quad games. Good look at operational combat without much complexity. Here are some screen shots:

Ganes are pretty polished. Working on play balance and quashing bugs. More details as we get closer to the release date.

3

Wow I thought y’all were gonna talk about this.

4

I had that one back in day. Not a bad game, at least for the time period when it came out.

5

This looks pretty interesting, especially with that many battles in one package. And yeah, I had the Interactive Magic game as well, back in the day.

6

Change of name to SGS Pacific D-Day. Game will be released April 28. Game is receiving a lot of tender, loving care, especially in regard to the AI. Game coming along nicely. The scenarios can easily be played in two hours, individually.

7

SGS has put up a series of videos on the game:

8

Game being released on Steam this morning. I have been playing it a lot.

9

Well if they’re going to put Peleliu in there, I can’t very well not play it. As usual, thanks for the heads-up, @Don60420! I feel like you’re basically doing all the hard work of keeping my relationship with SGS current. :)

-Tom

10

Peleliu. I have read few things more harrowing than Eugene Sledge’s account of what he ahd his fellow Marines went through in that unnecessary fight.

11

Peleliu. I have read few things more harrowing than Eugene Sledge’s account of what he ahd his fellow Marines went through in that unnecessary fight.

12

Unfortunately, I find this literally unplayable. Okay, maybe not literally. It is literally aggravating, however.

Movement and combat are in different phases, so on my turn, I move all my units, and then when I’m done, I resolve any battles one at a time. During those battles, I can use some of my cards, which are the main way you’ll interact with the game aside from moving chits.

However, when it’s not my turn, I have to resolve a whole string of battles, one at a time. The resolution goes through each territory individually. And since I’m the defender, I have to decide whether to use cards for each battle. Here’s how it looks:

battle for grid
battle for grid1200×502 142 KB

Okay, so this is the fight in a space called Grid 128C and now I have to decide whether I want to use any of my cards. There will be at least six more battles like that this round. Maybe more. And it’s the first turn of the game.

However, I can’t leave this screen. I can’t look Grid 128C to check the situation on it’s left and right flank, or whether I have reinforcements inbound, or what options are available if I retreat, or whether there are any victory points at stake. I can’t check what other battles might be happening this round, which is important because perhaps I should save these cards for one of those battles. I’m locked completely out of the rest of the game at precisely the time I’m being asked to make an important decision. That’s a massive failure in any videogame. It’s an especially massive failure coming from people who’ve already made videogames and should know better.

Also, SGS is really half-assing the documentation. I needed to look something up about turn resolution, which should be pretty straightforward, as I’ve read their manuals before. Their system is pretty straigthforward and doesn’t seem like it’s changed much. So let me just look that up real quick before I…oh, there’s no manual in this game, which is odd, since at least one of their other games has a manual. I know, I read it! The only documentation in this Pacific game is five brief tutorial videos of one of the developers faffing about explaining basic concepts. One of the videos consists entirely an explanation of stacking limits and how they’re displayed on the map. It even cuts off while he’s in mid-sentence.

So I’m done with this, and I think I’m probably done with SGS overall. It feels like they’re just foisting off low-effort shovelware on people hungry for wargames with varied subject matter. We deserve better. :(

-Tom

13

If I’m not mistaken, this same system is used in a mobile game; I have it for my iPad. It comes with one scenario, Normandy, with a whole lot of additional scenarios available for additional money. The system seems exactly the same, as do the graphics. And I found it as utterly unusable as well.

14

Wombat that game is Wars Across the World. Some similarities but the SGS games are advances on that system.

Tom, you make some good points and I am passing them on to the designer.

15

Ah, yeah, that’s the name. I sure hope the SGS games have improved that system, because, man, it is OPAQUE and awkward. Even for mobile!

16

The scenarios in Wars Across the World are a mixed bag. My favorite is the Spanish Civil War. The UI was really a bear initially a few years ago. It has improved but still needs work. I have found the designer very responsive to suggestions and constructive criticism.

17

In the Battles lists as the attacker you should be able to click on the “UP-RIGHT” button and examine stacks on the map… then you can choose which to fight first, and have some knowledge of the upcoming battles
We are looking at modifying the system to allow this choice when you are defending vs AI.
In head-to-head, the attacker chooses. In PBEM, the second player chooses

18

That would be helpful!

And now that I’ve come down from my extreme pique – I get flustered when I’m losing a wargame! – I realize it’s not as serious a problem as I made it out to be. It’s a pain in the ass, especially when you’re trying to learn the game, but it’s no game killer. You never really have that many cards anyway, and you’ll probably remember the names of the key territories once you’ve learned the map a little better.

Also, I found the documentation once I started a scenario. Just hit esacpe and there’s the link right there! I was looking for it from the main menu and I’m pretty sure there’s no way to access it from there. But once you’re actually playing a scenario, you have access to the manual – actually, it’s on the internet, so you technically always have access to it! – and more importantly, access to the write-ups for each scenario. If those aren’t actually available from the main menu, they should be. If they are available, I missed them.

Finally, I do feel like SGS might be milking this system a little too, uh, vigorously, but it was totally out of line for me to call it “low effort” or “shovelware”. That was just venting on my part and I apologize.

-Tom

19

Well said Tom!

20

I thought these guys had already made a Saipan game and then I realized that it was SSG, not SGS. I really wish they would up update their Decisive Battles games. I loved Battles in Italy. For me those games were just the perfect level of grog.