Thoughts on TOAWIII vs HPS PzC/MC

[BAL]

For more objective opinions on the relative merits of TOAW vs HPS's Panzer/Modern Campaigns I recommend going over to www.theblitz.org It is a PBEM club that supports both TOAW & Panzer/Modern Campaigns, among other popular games.

Both games have very active, and very friendly members who are more than willing to help out with questions.

[blastpop]

In the meantime, just avoid the very large scenarios. Plenty of good medium-sized ones.

I wish there was something in the description that listed the relative size of the scenario. The PDF about the scenarios is helpful with the number of pieces and such- but if I recall it doesn't include the actual size. A scenario that includes airborne and amphibious ops will be more complex and difficult, beyond what the mere size would indicate.

Sorry, I'm a greedy customer- I just want it all! [:D]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

Given my druthers, I'd put PzC above TOAW only because one can guarantee the qualifications and research behind the scenario design. TOAW makes it very hard to validate who designed what, with what research and why.

Well, good designers will generally put references in the scenario briefing, plus notes on why they took various TOAW-specific design decisions, etc.

Another aspect of TOAW that has never realy sat well with me, is that IMO it seems much more accurate to abstract a unit's combat power and related strengths rather than saying to the gamer - this is X unit  - it has 122 trucks and 63 smg's. That's just too much TO&E minutae to guarantee as being accurate to a gamer in a given scenario.

Any simulation is an abstraction based on subjective assumptions. The TOAW system makes those assumptions less important to the simulation as a whole, thereby making it less abstract.

On top of that, the equipment system allows the impact of losses and replacements to be modelled in depth. It also simulates the difference between a small unit of powerful tanks and a large unit of weak tanks.

TOAW 3 offers a huge load of scenarios - but as with TOAW 1 and 2 I sadly can't see much play coming out of it. Same with my PzC library now - superb campaigns and effort but I just don't have the patience right now to run through a campaign at battalion level with the AI firing and reacting to every move and then needing to whiz through its own offensive action.

If the PO's movements seem to slow to you then either use the -nodelay switch when running TOAW or else PBEM.

So I fired up TOAW 3's Middle East 73 and after one turn of boredom went "nup" too. I headed off to Conquest of the Aegean - and after some play said "nup" to a 90 page TUTORIAL manual! Come on designers - what happened to the 16 page Avalon Hill classic, 250 unit counters in size? [;)]

My Tobruk scenario has 100 units. Unfortunately the most recent version isn't currently in the public domain. I'll probably release it along with Rhodes (259 units).

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: mantill

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

When Matrix starts putting out the same engine year after year for a different battle and charging $50 fopr it, then it will turn into HPS.
When it charges full price for games made 6 years ago it will turn into HPS sims.

I feel this is a little unfair on two points. Firstly, HPS adds new features and upgrades to there combat engines with every release. And not only that they upgrade all previous game engines to incorporate these features. So if you bought the first game Smolensk back in 95 or whenever, today it would contain an upto date engine in it with

EDIT: P.s. I like the big campaigns as well, but then again I love WitP so what can I say.

It has been using the exact same engine for what...30 releases now?

Wargaming is the only genre where you could get away with something like that. If gamers started holding wargame companies to higher standerds like the rest of the gaming community then we could start getting much higher quality games.
HPS is the total antithitis of that. They are one trick ponies who find an engine and then milk it to death for an untold number of years.
If any other company tried that besides a wargame company then they would have been out of buisness years ago.

I hope Matrix and Battlefront and other respectable companies never start pulling that crap and let their designs stagnate.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: blastpop

I wish there was something in the description that listed the relative size of the scenario. The PDF about the scenarios is helpful with the number of pieces and such- but if I recall it doesn't include the actual size. A scenario that includes airborne and amphibious ops will be more complex and difficult, beyond what the mere size would indicate.

The Rugged Defence scenario archive has a complexity rating for each scenario, ranging from 0.25 for a couple of tiny post-wwii Central American scenarios to 5.81 for the whole of the war on the Eastern Front.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

Wargaming is the only genre where you could get away with something like that. If gamers started holding wargame companies to higher standerds like the rest of the gaming community then we could start getting much higher quality games.

This is the case because the wargaming community is so small. The Half-Life series has so far sold over fifteen million games. The figure for the TOAW series would be somewhere between 0.1 and 1% of that.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

Wargaming is the only genre where you could get away with something like that. If gamers started holding wargame companies to higher standerds like the rest of the gaming community then we could start getting much higher quality games.

This is the case because the wargaming community is so small. The Half-Life series has so far sold over fifteen million games. The figure for the TOAW series would be somewhere between 0.1 and 1% of that.

No, it is because wargamers are content to play 80s style games or they think things cannot get any better.

The last few years I think has shattered that notion.
With games like the Panther Games series, Combat Mission, Take Command and some games coming down the pipe.

All of those have radical new ideas and new designs and Combat Mission and Take Command have very pretty graphics and all three you can pick up and start playing in 10 minutes due to the wonderful interface and logical decisions that treat the games like games and not Windows 3.1 programs.

So I refuse to believe the notion that because budgets and staffs are small that we cannot get high quality games. Some companies has shown that to be a bogus notion.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

If something works, use it.

By the reasoning against HPS, ASL should have been condemned several modules ago. You buy a manual amd Beyond Valour, it's a complete game, but then you are expected to shell out and shell out over the course of many modules, for pieces all designed with the same game design.

What's with that?

It always depends on whether something works or not.

I just got a chance to look at Heroes of Might and Magic V.
Man that is one graphically impressive evolution.
But, is it fair to expect a wargame maker to compete with a game that goes from being HOMM1 to HOMM5 with several major evolutions in look?

PzC isn't a Final Fantasy wannabe either.

Now, as I said, a person can make complaints about anything if they try hard enough. I find the sound files for PzC haven't improved at all, they basically are bland, and the software running them is also usually poor grade software. Surely the sounds contained in a PzC title should have been able to evolve at least a bit from the first release. But it appears they haven't even tried to evolve them at all.

But I am not going to call it wrong to just like a design and stick with it.
The only thing that has happened to the sale potential of PzC titles, is they now have to compete with TOAW3 that can offer every single HPS title for one purchase.
And TOAW3 isn't alone. You get a heck of a lot of game with the combination of RGW and AGW from Schwerpunkt.

It comes down to a matter of taste. I personally loathe Coors lite But, it seems plenty like to drink the weak vile crap hehe.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

No, it is because wargamers are content to play 80s style games or they think things cannot get any better.

Frankly, I find the mainstream of computer gaming to be pretty moribund. There is a great deal of reworking old ideas only with ever-more spectacular 3D graphics. "UFO: Aftermath" looked pretty cool but right now I would prefer to play "UFO: Enemy Unknown" (AKA X-COM: UFO Defence). It was a better game.

The last few years I think has shattered that notion.
With games like the Panther Games series, Combat Mission, Take Command and some games coming down the pipe.

These are all tactical games, aren't they?

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

No, it is because wargamers are content to play 80s style games or they think things cannot get any better.

Frankly, I find the mainstream of computer gaming to be pretty moribund. There is a great deal of reworking old ideas only with ever-more spectacular 3D graphics. "UFO: Aftermath" looked pretty cool but right now I would prefer to play "UFO: Enemy Unknown" (AKA X-COM: UFO Defence). It was a better game.

The last few years I think has shattered that notion.
With games like the Panther Games series, Combat Mission, Take Command and some games coming down the pipe.

These are all tactical games, aren't they?

The Panther games series is operational. Unit scale can get pretty small but it is operatioanl.
It is also the best wargame engine I have ever used.
Very fresh and quite amazing.

[blastpop]

I just got a chance to look at Heroes of Might and Magic V.
Man that is one graphically impressive evolution.
But, is it fair to expect a wargame maker to compete with a game that goes from being HOMM1 to HOMM5 with several major evolutions in look?

From the reviews I read, it mostly the same game under the hood, at least in terms of what it does. Sure there are changes and variations- the upgrade there is the eye candy.

I think a better evolution for computer wargames is the improvement at this time in ease of playability and more intuitive interfaces. While its a different genre, World of Warcraft has an interface in which you can immediately start playing without reading any rules. While some may think that may be extreme for a computer wargame and currently is-it is at the least a useful goal for any game designer. You may or may not like WoW, its interface system is worthing of holding up under the light for evaluation for what such an elegant interface can do for a game. WoW has a lot of depth under the hood and only becomes apparent when you want it or need it.

In my opinion better interfaces will allow designers to add depth to their designs. It seems to me that currently many games the interface is added only after the game is designed and not so much an integral part of the design process. Consequently the entire package can appear to be less than coherent.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

No, it is because wargamers are content to play 80s style games or they think things cannot get any better.

The last few years I think has shattered that notion.
With games like the Panther Games series, Combat Mission, Take Command and some games coming down the pipe.

All of those have radical new ideas and new designs and Combat Mission and Take Command have very pretty graphics and all three you can pick up and start playing in 10 minutes due to the wonderful interface and logical decisions that treat the games like games and not Windows 3.1 programs.

So I refuse to believe the notion that because budgets and staffs are small that we cannot get high quality games. Some companies has shown that to be a bogus notion.

Word!! [&o]

Absolutely true.

BTW as regards "0,1 to 1%" number I think it is not correct. I faintly remember seeing the number of over 100.000 copies sold, for TOAW1 only, and while it was still going strong. (The data comes from someone from Talonsoft or Norm himself.) If that number is (was) correct then I'd take a wild guess and say all TOAW editions, mission packs, etc etc sold well over 300.000 copies, which is 2% of Half Life's 15 mil. [:'(]

Oleg

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

The Panther games series is operational. Unit scale can get pretty small but it is operatioanl.
It is also the best wargame engine I have ever used.
Very fresh and quite amazing.

Took a look at this company. It strikes me that they're doing exactly the same thing you accuse HPS of- repeatedly re-selling the same engine tweaked for different battles. The only difference is that they haven't been doing it as long. I don't see any mention of a scenario editor here.

Anyway, it is good to see a game breaking away from the constraints imposed by boardgames. There are a lot of good, innovative ideas here. Unfortunately my experience with Paradox games tells me that the real time approach makes multiplayer if not actually impossible, certainly very tedious.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

BTW as regards "0,1 to 1%" number I think it is not correct. I faintly remember seeing the number of over 100.000 copies sold, for TOAW1 only, and while it was still going strong. (The data comes from someone from Talonsoft or Norm himself.) If that number is (was) correct then I'd take a wild guess and say all TOAW editions, mission packs, etc etc sold well over 300.000 copies, which is 2% of Half Life's 15 mil. [:'(]

The subsequent releases of TOAW were less popular than Volume I, to my understanding.

In any case, 2% is still not a lot.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

My interest in Panthers Games is solely based on how I am very pleased with how they made the first game.

I want CotA based solely on how much I liked HttR. I was also quite happy to hear they plan to release several follow on titles.

So in that respect, I guess, if someone likes the design, they'll want more. I suspect each title will evolve some at the core.

I've been impressed with how far the game design has come from TAO2 through KP, BiN and BiI from SSG. It could be said it all looks the same, but clearly, the game design has evolved.

Last comment. I have never thought of HttR as operational. I usually think of operational as being a game that encompasses most or all of a theater of war.
I prefer to think of HttR as tactical, even if it's not about driving separate vehicles around.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Anyway, it is good to see a game breaking away from the constraints imposed by boardgames. There are a lot of good, innovative ideas here. Unfortunately my experience with Paradox games tells me that the real time approach makes multiplayer if not actually impossible, certainly very tedious.

COTA is THE BEST currently available wargaming engine for operational level battles. Period. TOAW is (glorious) past, COTA is the future, no doubt about it, only questions are when will the majority of people notice it, and how fast relatively small Panther team can produce new games, scenarios, content etc.

Scenario editor is available, as is the map editor, but it's usability is limited by included "estabs" which are not user editable (yet, there are some changes planned regarding this but I won't comment on that). Basically, this means that player is able to construct his own scenarios, but only using the "estabs" (TOE and OOB) provided with the game.

Multiplayer is very possible and lots of fun, but it's certainly a world apart from PBEM-based TOAW play. I remain huge fan of PBEM (suits my lifestyle [;)]) but COTA's pausable continuous time and overall system are so clearly superior to anything else. Whether one is ready to jump from PBEM to direct online play to experience playing that system vs otzher humans is a question everyone must answer for himself.

Incidentally, I would dare say even Norm himself took the "COTA way" with his Distant Guns - excelent, again real-time based game, kinda like COTA on sea (and in 3D [&o])

O.

[MarcA]

PzC interests me because they have well developed scenarios and excellent maps and OOB's. The combat system is also well grounded and in many many hours of play has only provided an eyebrow raising result once.

TOAW interests me partly bacuase of it's scope but also because of its editor anf flexiility.

And not wanting to get to far off-topic the forthcoming Combined Arms: WWII looks like a very intersting concept in gaming with its multiplayer facility.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

COTA is THE BEST currently available wargaming engine for operational level battles. Period. TOAW is (glorious) past, COTA is the future, no doubt about it, only questions are when will the majority of people notice it, and how fast relatively small Panther team can produce new games, scenarios, content etc.

Scenario editor is available, as is the map editor, but it's usability is limited by included "estabs" which are not user editable (yet, there are some changes planned regarding this but I won't comment on that). Basically, this means that player is able to construct his own scenarios, but only using the "estabs" (TOE and OOB) provided with the game.

So it's sharply limited in its scope? So, as a designer, I should keep working with TOAW, where I have complete freedom of subject matter and of scale?

Multiplayer is very possible and lots of fun, but it's certainly a world apart from PBEM-based TOAW play. I remain huge fan of PBEM (suits my lifestyle [;)]) but COTA's pausable continuous time and overall system are so clearly superior to anything else. Whether one is ready to jump from PBEM to direct online play to experience playing that system vs otzher humans is a question everyone must answer for himself.

I've played PCT multiplayer with Europa Universalis and Victoria. I didn't really enjoy either very much because it was either frantic or drearily slow. However both games work reasonably well against the AI. If the Panther Games site's claims about the quality of the AI are accurate, then I guess one of their games will be going on my Christmas list.

Incidentally, I would dare say even Norm himself took the "COTA way" with his Distant Guns - excelent, again real-time based game, kinda like COTA on sea (and in 3D )

3D graphics turn me off big time.

[RedMike]

HEY!!

You guys are way off the point here. I don't want to air out old laundry about game company business models. I've been there, done all that. I want to know about the tactical differences, techniques of play, bewteen PzC/MC and TOAW.

For example, how is defensive fire handled ? Opportunity fire ? That sort of thing.

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: RedMike

Not to start a war or anything, but I'm a long time player of HPS campaigns series and unfamiliar with TOAW. I just took the plunge and find the game very enjoyable. I'd like to know why one would prefer TOAW over HPS stuff or vice versa.

I would rather have TOAW 3 over any one (or indeed several) Panzer Campaigns titles simply because of its flexibility and superior AI. However, the HPS games do score in one very important respect for me; you feel (in a wargamerish sort of way) that you might actually be commanding soldiers. TOAW, for all its plus points, always had, and still has, a feeling rather too much like playing chess for my taste.

Games like HTTR, COTA and the Prosim ATF series completely escape that feeling, and I agree that they are likely to be the future for the hobby.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


So it's sharply limited in its scope? So, as a designer, I should keep working with TOAW, where I have complete freedom of subject matter and of scale?

Depends what you want to design. A game as flexible as TOAW has its advantages, but if another game is more limited it may also tend to yield better results within the area is was designed to cover, as much can be abandoned and consequently more relevant detail and additional features included. However, it is pretty obvious that if you want to design a Velike Luki scenario then a game designed around the Aegean is unlikely to be a good choice!

I've played PCT multiplayer with Europa Universalis and Victoria. I didn't really enjoy either very much because it was either frantic or drearily slow. However both games work reasonably well against the AI. If the Panther Games site's claims about the quality of the AI are accurate, then I guess one of their games will be going on my Christmas list.

"PCT" is just a label, much like "RTS" is. The Paradox games have about as much relevance to HTTR/COTA as Warcraft does to Close Combat.