CAW and Carrier Strike

[AP514]

Well, I think I will Wait to buy CAW. As stated in other Thread.
I will wait for an AAR of CAW.........Moe [:D] Hint , Hint.
And a few Reviews.
I guess a few House rule when play'n Mulitplay could handle
the Surface bonzi after Carriers "on Station".


Carrier Strike is a great game....Mulitplay will be just awsome.

One thing I would like addressed would be the Search A/C.

You could always tell where the EMENY Carriers where even with out getting a report.

This was due to the fact that the search Planes could be sent out in a Pattern and if one of your Search planes was shot down by Emeny CAP it would Disappear from the Pattern. The Search Patterns would show up at the end of each Phase. Giv'n you the area the Ememy is in...........

A SUGGESTION would be to have the A/C still show on the Search Pattern and when it does not show up at its landing time you would be informed "SEARCH 6" is over due and maybe missing. Maybe even have variable time of landing like the Search got off course or was not out as far as it thought. So landed early.


AP514

[undercovergeek]

never played either - is there a stark contrast between the two games.

[Owl]

They were quite different in my view.  In CS you handle your air group operations your self - shuffling your planes from the deck through arming (choosing what to arm them with) and finally to spotting and launching.  If I remember right you had to be a bit careful - clearing decks for landing aircraft and such.  Searches were controlled similarly if you wanted to use armed carrier aircraft - you'd pick a direction and they'd fan out.  Float planes too would be used.  As APS14 said though, if you lost a float plane you had an idea of where the enemy might be at!
I found the carreir ops fun and sometimes nail bightingly so.  As the Japanese - ok, you've found the enemy and you've readied aircraft - now you have to wait with the planes ready for one more round before lauch.  Will the Dauntlesses show up?  On the US side you get a bit of radar warning at least.
 
CAW had the game take care of the finer points of aircraft ops and landing and such and let you concentrate more on the battle.  The air combat was somewhat simlar in each - giving "news" of what is being hit (which may be overstated badly if it's your aircraft claiming enemy hits).
 
Caviat... it's been a long time since I played either.  I don't remember all the details for example how surface combate worked in CS.  I also had more game time with CS than CAW.  The thing that turned me off instantly from CS (which I dearly hope is fixed!!!) is that you could almost always intercept carrier fleets with surface taskforces by assigning them an intercept mission.  Just how many fleet carriers TF's were intercepted by enemy surface fleets in WW2?  1 - and that was in off Norway (Glorious sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau).

[FrattonFreak]

I've not played either.
 
Would the old CAW still play on a modern PC and if so where could I get a copy from (don't post a link just type what I should search with[;)])?
 
Thanks

[Justascratch]

It's been a long time since I played CS too. I remember playing for about a month or so and then losing interest due to lack of depth. As I recall it was quite easy to beat the AI. I always thought of it as a lightweight experience, but the lack of alternatives for tactical carrier operation games made it worthwhile in it's day. I am anxious to see how the updated CAW will fare on the replayability scale.

I never tried CS with a modern OS. I think I still have the original on 3.5" floppy somewhere. If I can find it, I'll give it a try and post the results.

[Marauders]

The days of Apple II and Commodore Amiga ....
 
One thing cool about playing Carrier Strike for the first time was that it sort of had the feel of a carrier war room.  Part of that was because of the graphics and the sounds being so limited.
 
Carriers at War had more graphics and more features.
 
I have read that both CS and CAW (obviously) are being updated, but I don't have much information on CS.
 

[Justascratch]

Wow! I hope that rumor turns out to be true. All of the remakes coming thru Matrix have been exceptional. I already plan to buy the new CS but I could easily find room on my hard drive for both games.

[Owl]

IF the surface fleet's ability to intercept aircraft carriers in the original CAW were tweaked to be much, much harder then I'd have liked the game better.  To me that virtually ruined it for me.  I have little doubt that this will be takend care of though in the new version.
I personally liked the ability to choose my strike mix (bombers, torpedo planes and escort) and making decisions on what to arm and what to keep for later and all that which CS allowed and I don't recall CAW doing.  Still I can understand how some may not want the detail of being deck officer for their carrier groups and just want to command. 

[RayWolfe]

ORIGINAL: Owl
I personally liked the ability to choose my strike mix (bombers, torpedo planes and escort) and making decisions on what to arm and what to keep for later and all that which CS allowed and I don't recall CAW doing.

It did.
Ray

[firecapt]

I enjoyed Carrier Strike over Carriers At War because as I remember CS had a campaign game where CAW only had individual scenarios. If you lost Enterprise at Midway, she was not available for Santa Cruz or the Eastern Solomon's.