Where OPART shines and fails

[Williamb]

Not a blatant critisim but rather a critique of OPART. Why I like and dislike about it.

TOAW is great at the ground combat most of the time. Is a few inexplainable instances where unrealistic results happen. (like and entire division being destroyed in one day's fighting.) I love OPART's ability to capture Ground warfare at the Divisional, Regimental and Battalion Level.

The TO&E of Opart is very well done and superior weapons and training do win the day in battles. I would like more of a "Grind" kind of combat where attrition wears forces down over time. But all in all OPART does a great job of capturing this level of Combat.

Where OPART is weak is in its naval and Air models. The naval model is perhaps the weakest part of this game. In support of Armies they do well but navies are meant to fight other navies and this game does NOT capture that part of operational war at all well. Maybe its a bit unrealistic of me to want an all encompassing game but if its modeled in the game should have some connection to a more realistic model.

Air power for me is also weak. I undrstand that there isnt a "Strategic" component to the game (IE bombing factories to weaking support for the opponents military.) However again like the naval air power is meant mostly to go against air power. OPART seems to treat both navy and Air power as just an extenstion of ground forces. To me that weakens the game a little bit.

But all said and done I fully admit OPART is a ground combat simulation. It does a great game and it captures most of the conflicts it portrays very well. Could it be better ? Yes. But its a truely good game in its own right.

Any other thoughts by others on how this game is ?

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: William Amos

The TO&E of Opart is very well done and superior weapons and training do win the day in battles. I would like more of a "Grind" kind of combat where attrition wears forces down over time. But all in all OPART does a great job of capturing this level of Combat.

Look for scenarios to play that have short turns and high attrition dividers. This will give you the "grind" results you are looking for.

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: William Amos
Any other thoughts by others on how this game is ?

Think you pretty well described the TOAW ground, air and sea virtues. TOAW III might be a tad better in air and sea, but I don't expect too much. Down the road though, I have a feeling that Matrix will produce a version of TOAW that has a much more realistic simulation of air and sea forces. Just my opinion of course.

Regards, RhinoBones

[roboczar]

OPART seems to treat both navy and Air power as just an extenstion of ground forces.

Well considering that's how modern armed conflict works, I'd say TOAW is pretty realistic. Norm himself has said this is meant to be a ground combat simulation, and as in real life, naval and air forces will be there simply to support ground operations.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: William Amos

Is a few inexplainable instances where unrealistic results happen. (like and entire division being destroyed in one day's fighting.)

Well "evaporation" isn't the same as "destroyed". It's open to interpretation- but the division has basically melted away. Not every single man has become a casualty, but the whole is no longer capable of fighting as a cohesive military unit. There are stragglers, and either they'll reconstitute as the original unit or join up with other units later on.

I would like more of a "Grind" kind of combat where attrition wears forces down over time.

Does happen sometimes. Depends on the scenario.

However again like the naval air power is meant mostly to go against air power. OPART seems to treat both navy and Air power as just an extenstion of ground forces. To me that weakens the game a little bit.

? Man lives on the ground. I heard one guy say that there are two branches of military forces: infantry and infantry support. I think the air force's primary role is to let the infantry get on with occupying the other guy's country, at least in conventional warfare. That sometimes involves shooting down the other guy's air force, but that's not an end in itself.

Anyway, good, intelligent discussion.

[JReb]

Another weakness of the game is how it plays at the game scale extremes. Battalion, Regiment, Brigade, Division scaled games work very, very well. However, the platoon-company or corp-army scenarios are weaker. They require more theatre options and events to smooth out the edges.

Besides that, the editor is....uughhh

Overall, I give it a 9 out of 10.

[roboczar]

I don't even really see any of this stuff as gameplay weakness. TOAW's strength is in its scale and abstraction of other branches of the military. I would probably get behind a version that allowed you to create an operational level naval battle, with abstracted land and air; as well as ground scenarios where air and naval are abstracted... but NOT both at the same time. Having all branches of the military equally represented would make the game totally unmanageable and a chore to play. I think Norm made good inital design decisions.

[Jeff Norton]

ORIGINAL: JReb
Besides that, the editor is....uughhh

Amen - If Ralph and Co. improve this, Its well worth the moola. Even to remove the weapons DB from the EXE (for easier access/manipulation) would (probally???) be an improvement...

[sprior]

ORIGINAL: JReb

Another weakness of the game is how it plays at the game scale extremes. Battalion, Regiment, Brigade, Division scaled games work very, very well. However, the platoon-company or corp-army scenarios are weaker. They require more theatre options and events to smooth out the edges.

Besides that, the editor is....uughhh

Overall, I give it a 9 out of 10.

That's because it's designed to work at the Operational level. Platoons and armies are tactical and strategic respectively.

[Williamb]

I think I should clarify that I understand that TOAW is a ground campaign simulator mostly.

I guess where I find fault is with the way Air Forces and Navies are model.

I would think that the first duty of air forces is supression of enemy air forces. To me that means targeting his airbases and Air Defenses FIRST.

In TOAW its very hard to make an attack package as say in a game like harpoon. Fighters are handled abstratly rather than part of a package aimed a specific location. Also Atacking air bases dont realyl do more than harm the base itself rather than the planes there.

As for navies again its abstract. Navies do not hunt other navies. They go to specific locations (mostly bases) and all the action happens there. There is no "midway" type battle in the middle of oceans.

Not to argue that this is completely wrong for a game like TOAW but it does prevent the true use of naval and air assets.

[roboczar]

ORIGINAL: William Amos
In TOAW its very hard to make an attack package as say in a game like harpoon. Fighters are handled abstratly rather than part of a package aimed a specific location. Also Atacking air bases dont realyl do more than harm the base itself rather than the planes there.

Can you seriously, honestly, imagine tasking location by location CAS and CAP packages in a scenario like Barbarossa? Thank your lucky stars that air superiority is abstracted, man. If you want to play with planes, go with Falcon 4 or Harpoon.

ORIGINAL: William Amos
As for navies again its abstract. Navies do not hunt other navies. They go to specific locations (mostly bases) and all the action happens there. There is no "midway" type battle in the middle of oceans.

It's abstracted for a perfectly good reason... the reason being that in relation to ground operations, naval combat out in the middle of the Pacific (or any body of blue water) is beyond the scope of an operational theater. Why would a ground commander care about the details of just how Admiral Whatsisface sunk that battleship and saved the invasion force? The only thing that matters is the guy *did* it, and the ground forces commander can get on with the positioning of his forces for victory.

ORIGINAL: William Amos
Not to argue that this is completely wrong for a game like TOAW but it does prevent the true use of naval and air assets.

This is the reason why militaries have 3 basic branches. Each branch has its own operational level tasks in a conflict, and while these tasks complement the tasks of the other branches in order to achieve victory through combined arms, it's unrealistic and needlessly demanding of a commander to force him to have operational control over all of them. Commanders on the ground work with the air and naval forces, but don't get involved with the details, because it's *irrelevant* to his job *how* it's done; it just *gets done*.

I think this is one of the things TOAW simulates the best of all the many things it does well, which is why i'm in here defending it. :p

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: sprior

That's because it's designed to work at the Operational level. Platoons and armies are tactical and strategic respectively.

Corps sort of works. It's the 50km scale that's more of a problem.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: William Amos

In TOAW its very hard to make an attack package as say in a game like harpoon. Fighters are handled abstratly rather than part of a package aimed a specific location.

Yeah, that can be a problem. All you can do at the moment is set the fighters on "ignore losses" and hope they intercept. What I'd hope for in the future is for the player to be able to define an area of operations as an elipse which incorporates the airbase. The smaller the elipse, the more likely the aircraft are to participate in an air attack in that area. This covers a multitude of sins and should be fairly simple.

[Central Blue]

It's interesting to read this thread after having bought WITP and read those threads for a while. Over there, some want a better model of land war -- over here, a better air and naval model.

Perhaps Gary and Norm could be locked in a room for a while.

[Rob322]

ORIGINAL: William Amos
I would think that the first duty of air forces is supression of enemy air forces. To me that means targeting his airbases and Air Defenses FIRST.

Why are they trying to gain air superiority? So the CAS aircraft can fly in and shoot up enemy troops at will without having to worry about getting bounced by enemy fighters. The goal of all those F-15s is to ensure the A-10s and F-111s can do their job with a minimum of fuss and those guys are there solely to support the troops on the ground.

As for navies again its abstract. Navies do not hunt other navies. They go to specific locations (mostly bases) and all the action happens there. There is no "midway" type battle in the middle of oceans.

True, but then this is a land war simulator, not a naval one. I have yet to see a game that allows you to have a realistic and playable war on the ground while at the same time also have the same thing for the naval model and the air model. Indeed, that's why most games are one or the other. Harpoon for example doesn't even try to deal with the land conflict. And if/when that comes along I doubt it will be $30. [:D] WITP tries it and comes close, I grant that but it has its shortcomings to be sure and that is likely due in large part to the difficulty in not only coding all of that but getting the "land, sea, and air" to gel together (sort of like the real military I suppose).

There is something to be said for focus. The more something tries to cover all the bases, the more abstract and diffused it often becomes.

[macgregor]

When I read posts like this I always feel the same way. It's like someone is trying to say ' This game is not for you, it's for me'. Maybe the game isn't for me. But who gives you the right to say? Are you in charge of developement? I want the game to be as good as it can be, even if it has to make me happy. If you are right and I am wrong then i will wait for Wif to be released. But until this game released, do you think you could hold back your impish desires to rain on our parade? Go kick your cat or something.

[Williamb]

Hmm well I admit I focused more on shortcommings in TOAW than what works.

I do admit that it is superior to most other games when it comes to resolving the ground operational level of combat.

At times the combat model seems off (with units being destroyed far faster than they really should) but all in all it is great at capturing large scale battles.

Again I know this is a ground combat based engine. I simply stated the limitations on the other aspects of military warfare (naval and Air) Again that isnt what this game is about but doesnt mean that those aspects of warfare shouldnt be limited to just one function.

Its frustrating to me to order a naval bombardment and watch a destroyer group or crusier be destroyed in combat. And Im not talking about an attack on shore batteries. Its equally frustrating to watch strategic bombers be shot out of the sky by ground AA batteries in large numbers.

Again this is why I like the smaller scale re creations using OPART. The losses make much more sense in small doses.

Im not saying OPART is a bad game it just has its limitations.

[rhinobones]

In the scenarios I have made, and only a few of them are yet public, I have tried to avoid the stated problems with aircraft and naval forces by employing two different design strategies.

With aircraft I prefer to provide the forces with only tactical and/or fighter bomber aircraft. In one exception a limited number of high level bombers. The use of FB’s in either the fighter or bomber role is up to the players. This tends to reduce the “fighter” layer of units and lessens the total units the player needs to manipulate. When only Tactical bombers are used, the equation becomes even simpler.

When this use of FB/Tac aircraft is employed in amounts proportional to the desired effect, fighters, and sometimes high level bombers are not required. This use of aircraft is enhanced when the exe modified for AA is used. AA protects vital points (usually river crossing) and inflicts some pain on the attacking aircraft.

With naval forces, I have used a battlefield map (300x300) with a central continent. A map this large requires approximate 8 turns for naval forces to circumnavigate the world. This makes it possible for enemy forces to operate in different theaters and independently pursuer objectives without the concern that the enemy is one move away from ambush. In fact, this scenario has very strong hide, seek, ambush, ground support and naval dominance aspects. Closer to 1920's-1940's ‘realistic’ naval operations than I have seen in other TOAW-COW scenarios.

This has nothing to do with special manipulation of the COW game engine, rather it is a product of the large scale and scenario design.

I guess my bottom line suggestion for use of naval and air forces would be to, 1) design COW scenarios as primarily land warfare scenarios and 2) limit the use of air and naval forces to the minimum necessary to achieve the desired effects. We need to design TOAW-COW scenarios with in the program limitations. Of course the use of the Bio Editor obviously increases the range of scenarios possible with TOAW-COW. Yves, thank you fot the Bio Editor.

Maybe, we can hope for air force and naval characteristics more global in the future. But in the mean time, TOAW III sounds like some real good nukie to me.

Regards, RhinoBones

[Rob322]

ORIGINAL: macgregor

When I read posts like this I always feel the same way. It's like someone is trying to say ' This game is not for you, it's for me'. Maybe the game isn't for me. But who gives you the right to say? Are you in charge of developement? I want the game to be as good as it can be, even if it has to make me happy. If you are right and I am wrong then i will wait for Wif to be released. But until this game released, do you think you could hold back your impish desires to rain on our parade? Go kick your cat or something.

Ahhhh .... ok. I'm simply going off what the game itself describes itself as, as well as my experiences with games in general. No one on here is saying don't ask for what you want. No one is saying don't dream of what you like either. Just trying to interject some reality in the discussion. Also, just trying to discuss what the game designer intended. No one is trying to rain on your parade, this presupposes it's important to me to do so (which it isn't). Perhaps you should chill out a little bit.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: sprior

That's because it's designed to work at the Operational level. Platoons and armies are tactical and strategic respectively.

Corps sort of works. It's the 50km scale that's more of a problem.

You know of a better 50km/hex simulator? I don't. Nor of a better Corps/Army scale simulator.