The strategic goal

[Tzar007]

ORIGINAL: Awac835

I have one request... make a wargame set in the 1960-2005. I like WW2 also, but it is a era that have been done so many times that i don't know if i should laugh or cry.
I will keep buyng the AA and DB games just to support em and then hope that they one day wake up and port there great game systems to the modern era instead of staying back in the almost dead world of WW2.

Maybe i should skip BII and COTA and buy the almost 7 years old TOAW instaed since i havent gotten around it yet.
I wonder if matrixgames and all the rest will still make WW2 wargames 50 years from now, or they have moved on.

Think about it, the only choice i have, if i want to play "realistic" modern era wargames, is C&C generals or Act Of War, how lame is that.

ARRHGG, it drives me nuts to see such a great system as AA and DB are being used again and again and again and.... on WW2, why not some modern time stuff, there are plenty of stuff to pick from, gulfwar, vietnam, the wars in the middle east, iraq/iran, syria/israel, balkan, falkland etc. etc.

I would like also to see some modern era battles done with the HTTR engine, but the problem when you look at all those modern battles is that they are mostly one-sided affairs. One side enjoyed a tremendous superiority and just crush the other side. That might make for great headline news, but as far as wargaming is concerned, it is often lame to replay these battles.

The Vietnam era could be played at the strategic level, by portraying the full South Vietnam theater. Americans enjoyed complete superiority at a tactical level but strategically (and sometimes operationally) they had to make choices about where exactly they would make their firepower speak.

But the Middle-Eastern wars (except perhaps 1973 Yom Kippour) were one-sided affairs, as was the Falklands. Iran/Iraq was a long and often low-intensity conflict that might not be very interesting. Balkans in the 1990 was a civil war, difficult to wargame also in conventional terms.

Korea might be quite interesting though, as well as some of the Indian-Pakistan earlier clashes.

[oi_you_nutter]

ORIGINAL: CriticalMass

ORIGINAL: oi_you_nutter

North Africa gets my vote and here are some reasons why

there are lots of nationalities involved British, German, Italian, USA, Indians, South Africans, New Zealand, Vichy French, Free French, Poles, Czechs AND the Aussies (sorry if I forgot any)

with many variations in the qualities, abilities and equipment of those involved that would provide a good challenge in handling such varied troops and varied terrain.

one aspect of later WW2 battles is that they are often one side is generaly attacking while the other defends, the inititive kept on changing in the North Africa campaign.

I love you, you nutter.

I've been asking for the NA campaign from before the release of RDoA: there were, at one time, some screenshotst (probably "mock-ups") of the area around Tobruk...beautiful. I've asked several times for Arjuna to repost them [;)], but to no avail [:(].

I agree with everything you said, but would like to add that with the new supply system, you would have the final piece that made the desert campaigning so great: IMHO. You could also shove some Tunisia and Operation TORCH scenarios to keep our American cousins happy [;)].

I also suggested a "working title" Rats, Foxes and Sand.

TANX
Andrew

how could I have missed the oppurtunity to rave about the new supply system, what could be more a more perfick use than for a north africa game...

[save]

my vote for new scenarios : Sicily
Salerno
Operation Seelöve (landings)
Extension of HTTR : - venlo area ( further south in holland ) maybe in next version ?
Hürtgen forest

[wodin]

I'd imagine Hurtgen being better at squad level than this scale.

East Front and Africa would be great. I think it works better where manouver counts than slog it out attrition combat.

[Hartford688]

ORIGINAL: wodin

I'd imagine Hurtgen being better at squad level than this scale.

East Front and Africa would be great. I think it works better where manouver counts than slog it out attrition combat.

I agree. Units thwacking it out in the woods is not (I would have thought) this engine's forte. I reckon Ardennes '44 would be great - not because of the airborne element, I think that is irrelevant - but because of the manoeuvre. I know it is mainstream but I think would work well. Or Sicily (would much prefer the engine over BiI). Or some parts of Eastern Front (that could be great).

I would be with SeaMonkey...I will buy CotA even though I am not really that interested in the theatre in the hope it will lead to something more my taste. Now that is something I would not say about any other series.

[nijis]

Hi all. First, the usual kudos to Panther Games for a brilliant system. I'd bought RDOA a few years ago and loved it, but had given up on ever being able to play its successors, as no one seems to ship to where I live. So imagine my delight when I'm futzing around the web and find you can now get HTTR on digital download. I also intend to buy any future games, no matter what the theater, just to keep the new ones coming out.

However, my personal vote for two or three games down the line, assuming that PG wants to move beyond WW2, would be the Golan Heights in 1973. It would be about the right scale, it was a near-run thing with both sides attacking and defending, and has all kinds of interesting terrain and tactical situations including a helicopter assault on Mount Hermon.

More importantly, although the campaign has featured in wargames quite a bit, it has never IMHO been done right because no system until now has put enough emphasis on command and control. Good Israeli C&C, and more importantly miserable Syrian/Iraqi/Jordanian C&C, was as I understand it perhaps the single most important reason why the battle turned out as it did. Done properly, it might be a very frustrating experience for the Syrian/Iraqi/Jordanian player, with artillery bombardments falling on positions that the enemy has long vacated, planned coordinated flanking maneuvers turning into pell-mell frontal assaults, battalion commanders filing misleading reports to division, and the like, but the AA system could also really show off the differences between Israeli and Arab forces in a way that other systems have not.

Also, a mini-system that explicitly simulates tactical air support and suppression of enemy SAM nets would be almost as cool as supply.

[Rooster]

The Golan Heights is an interesting idea. Can you recommend any good books about it?

[nijis]

For military histories, Arabs at War (Kenneth Pollack, University of Nebraska press) has quite a good section on the 1973 war, as well as other pretty much any other Middle East conflict you'd care to name, including an extensive treatment of Libya's Chad campaign. Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner's Lessons of Modern War series is also good. Edgar O'Balance's No Victor, No Vanquished is supposed to be worthwhile, as is Jerry Asher's Duel for the Golan. There's also lots of more personal accounts by the Israeli participants which are really good reads.

[save]

Problem with sales I would refer to as a marketing problem, not a game problem.

It is a catch22 situation : Extensive marketing = big money = good sales
small or no marketing = small money = bad sales

A game can be very good - but if few knows about it it wont be sold in satisfactory numbers.

As for me, I did not know about the existence of the first game (red devils of arnhem) and
happened to see a online review of the game HTTR (strategy informer).

This will be even harder when the game does not sell itself on the shelves
in your local computerstore. (digital download)

Solution : Web-marketing and be very active on the boards where ww2 buffs discuss
aspects of war.

I come from online sims since 10 years and have been playing boardgames since mid-70s
and found just what I was looking for here <S>

In Warbirds ( online sim) a group of people that wanted to support the game
adverticised the games in flying related forums ( and had pc's at flyingclubs and fly-shows with free CD) - they got paid with an free account.

Could be translated here with a voucher on matrix game store for xxx number of copies
sold via that person ( a code system tells you who promoted the sell)

regards
Eric

[JJKettunen]

The best game engine needs an estab editor to be the best wargame of all-time.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Keke

The best game engine needs an estab editor to be the best wargame of all-time.

True but this company needs sales by releasing new games. If people had the chance of modding the game then sales in future releases may drop.

Im sure they need every sale possible.

Funny enough Im more interested in this theatre than MG. Reason being it is hardly covered anywhere else. Also mass German para drops using elite units sounds very exciting indeed.

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: wodin
True but this company needs sales by releasing new games. If people had the chance of modding the game then sales in future releases may drop.

Im sure they need every sale possible.

One couldn't mod the new features of every new release. Larger scenario making community wouldn't hurt the sales, I'd presume.

[wodin]

I understand what you say but I just think they cant take that risk.

Every game sold helps. I believe the series really is in the balance. They arent really making enough money from it compared to man hours.

[Arjuna]

keke,

For commercial reasons we're not going to be releasing an EstabMaker. Once I come up for air after finishing COTA I plan to look at setting up a number of design teams. These will each focus on developing the scenarios for a particular battle. There prime focus is on data content - research, data entry, developing the estabs using our in-house EstabMaker, creating maps and designing scenarios. We hope to get two to three people on each team. With two or three teams each taking a year to do their battle we could release a new title every six months or so. That way we should be able to better meet the demand for more product.

So, if you are interested in scenario design then why don't you send us some details about yourself ( contact, work, wargaming experience, any military, beta testing or scenario design experience ). While I haven't worked out the details yet we hope to offer a small cut of the royalties for this work. It won't be enough to retire on. But if your interested, email me at dave[at]panthergames[dot]com.

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

keke,

For commercial reasons we're not going to be releasing an EstabMaker. Once I come up for air after finishing COTA I plan to look at setting up a number of design teams. These will each focus on developing the scenarios for a particular battle. There prime focus is on data content - research, data entry, developing the estabs using our in-house EstabMaker, creating maps and designing scenarios. We hope to get two to three people on each team. With two or three teams each taking a year to do their battle we could release a new title every six months or so. That way we should be able to better meet the demand for more product.

So, if you are interested in scenario design then why don't you send us some details about yourself ( contact, work, wargaming experience, any military, beta testing or scenario design experience ). While I haven't worked out the details yet we hope to offer a small cut of the royalties for this work. It won't be enough to retire on. But if your interested, email me at dave[at]panthergames[dot]com.

I understand the commercial reasons, although I'm not convinced that releasing an EstabMaker (with a game or as a separate product) would hurt the sales, if every new game has new features. Basically you are doing this the Tiller way, nothing wrong with that, but you're game engine is much more sofisticated and not yet as popular, and an EstabMaker could help in growing the fan base.

I'd be very interested in doing scenario work for you (wouldn't care about the royalties), but my speciality is the Eastern Front (and especially the Finnish front). Since you guys concentrate on more marketable Western Front, I'm basically of no use. Meanwhile I continue to design a scenario where an Eastern Front battle is renacted by the units from Market Garden.

[Arjuna]

keke,

We very much want to do an east front game. I still hanker to go back to the Russian Front, after all it was the subject of my first board game ( Trial of Strength - War on the Eastern Front ) and my first computer game ( Fire-Brigade - Battle of Kiev ). Send us an email and we can talk.

Anyone else interested in joining a team to develop a game on the Russian front?

[Trigger Happy]

Hey Arjuna, I'd really be interested of being in a team though my "specialty" is the eastern front too.

And about the estab editor. I know it's been debated through and through, but I think that if you release one that cover everything WWII, while not drop the AA engine, you could go to other periods or other scales of simulation faster. The downside is that the AA operational WWII engine would not be updated like you did to bring httr to cota). An another minus would be that there would be much more work involved in tweaking the engine to accomodate different periods or scale hence more time between releases. But the positive would be a larger community, larger sales, more battles, more fun.

my 4 kopecks

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

keke,

We very much want to do an east front game. I still hanker to go back to the Russian Front, after all it was the subject of my first board game ( Trial of Strength - War on the Eastern Front ) and my first computer game ( Fire-Brigade - Battle of Kiev ). Send us an email and we can talk.

Anyone else interested in joining a team to develop a game on the Russian front?

Fire-Brigade is one of my old favourites. [:)]

I'll get back to you later.

[James Sterrett]

ORIGINAL: Keke
Fire-Brigade is one of my old favourites. [:)]

Mine too. I still have my copy on the shelf, though it doesn't get to come out and play often... er... >cough< ever. [:-] Overtaken by later games such as HTTR. [8D]