How does it Compare To SC2

[freeboy]

MHCaS???

[Barthheart]

Makeing History is an OK game. But you must like to play games with alternate histories. THe name comes from the fact that you start at different periods in hte war with just what your conutry had historically, but from there on it's up to you. All bets are off on actually following the historical flow of WWII. For example, every game I played as Germany, I tried to have a historical game but after the the invasion of Poland, Italy would declare war on Yugoslavia and then Britian and France would declare war Italy and conquer it before April 1940 and then I'd have a two front war before the invasion of France.

If you like games where you can completely change history, Making History is for you, If you want to fight WWII again, on an historical timeline, just trying to better that the real leaders then it may not be your taste.

Pzgndr, well said indeed. We should all be happy we have so much choice. I'm looking forward to this one. Great 3R mod for SC2 by the way!

[Yogi the Great]

Anyone out there who has played SC2 and Commander-Europe at war that can give a good comparison?
 
I have had SC2 for quite awhile, and I like it to a point but have to admit some disappointment in it.  Particularly the AI does not always make sense.  Another big one for me is that it does not make historical sense in many ways.  I prefer a simulation over just a game based on a historical event which is what I would call SC2.  The old Third Reicj Board game came closer to being a reasonable simulation and I woul like to have such a game again.
 
 

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

I have to say, one thing that is bugging me already is that it looks like you can't have more than one unit type in a hex...I don't know a damn thing about programming, but it just seems incredible that this couldn't be accomplished. The whole idea of the Ardennes Offensive is kind of a joke (as it was in SC) becuase you can't assemble a high concentration of forces in one area.

While I also would have prefered to see stacking included in Commander-Europe at War, I think that the question of stacking is related to how “operational” you want your “strategic level” game to be.

Some games (World at War, Making History, Hearts of Iron I) are almost entirely strategic with combat abstracted and pretty much out of the players control. The types of decisions being made are economic, production, research, where to send various units, and to some extent diplomatic (eg. World at War locks you into the historical alliances, while it is my understanding that Making History allows you to explore reasonable historical alternatives, such as Germany avoiding the blunder of invading the Soviet Union). These, of course, all allow stacking since the alternative is to only permit one unit in each province.

Other games (such as Strategic Command and Commander-Europe at War) offer more detailed models of combat, and are what I’d call “strategic-operational” level games. The more you start to include accurate, detailed, combat (ie. including more “operational” elements) the more advantages stacking offers, which is probably why it’s traditionally used in “operational level” wargames, such as "The Operational Art of War", the "Decisive Battles of World War II" series, the "V for Victory" series, most board wargames, etc. Stacking makes it easy to permit the player to concentrate troops where needed, to maneuver troops into position, to employ combined arms, to exploit breakthroughs, provide easily deployable mobile reserves behind the front line, and to deploy a defense in depth where troops that are retreating after an attack can fall back on a second line of defense. Undoubtedly clever designers, like the folks at Slitherine, can find ways of overcoming the difficulties imposed by not allowing stacking, but they might also have decided to take the direction that the original Strategic Command took (I don’t have Strategic Command II) where these things are just not part of the game.

For what it’s worth, this is not a rant against Strategic Command which I think is an excellent game, lots of fun to play, with many nuances and deep strategy. It is not, however, a very accurate simulation of the subtleties of World War 2 combat. Also the lack of stacking means that a fair amount of time and effort has to be devoted fiddling around shuffling units out of each others way, since they can’t move through each other. Some of these problems might have been overcome in Strategic Command II, and as I understand it at least some of them have been worked around in Commander-Europe at War, but it does seem to me to be a lot of extra work to solve problems that can be relatively easily solved by the “tried and true” mechanism of stacking.

All that said, I am looking forward to Commander-Europe at War with great anticipation. I’m confident, on the basis of past offerings from Slitherine, that it will be an excellent game and I will be interested to see how it “stacks up” (pun intended), as a simulation of World War 2 combat.

[harley9699]

ORIGINAL: LRRP

I think that we need to know how this differs from SC2 or how it does it better?

While all of the above discussions are very interesting, I'm still intrigued about the original question asked here [:)]

Just from screenshots, it looks extremely close to SC II. A clone/blend of SCII with some PG. I am hoping for someone to do a nice compare and contrast of the two originally asked about.

Agree with all of the thoughts of a 'perfect' game---that will depend entirely upon the individual---and, IMO, their tastes in exactly how closely they want their wargame to mimic history. With SCII, there were (are) a ton of 'scripts' that can be toggled on or off to follow or deviate from history. For my tastes, GGWAW was always too much locked into history and not variable enough! I prefer the grand strategy (and global scope) of HOI II and MHCaS---as well as the ability to go in and totally rewrite history, when/if I feel like it. Want the ability to play it straight down the line OR get into a fight with Canada over Minnesota and Maine if I choose so. [:D]

Plus, having just dropped the bucks on CAW and Tiller's Campaign Series, I'd like to know what I'm getting, rather than, as was mentioned earlier, just simply waiting for the SC II expansion. Want enough of a difference to validate another $50. [also wear the pants <cough>-----outside of the house-----hey, I know who butters the bread and who breads the butter ]
Been a long-time, hardcore wargamer, with tastes ranging from WitP, TOAW, SPWaW, Korsun, and 'Aegean all the way to MoH (prefer turn based obviously, but ya gotta just blast some people with an MP-40 sometimes .

SOOOOO, please let us know the pros, cons, differences, assessts, liabilities, etc.
Knowing me and Matrix though, I'll probably be getting this as well. Been watching it/waiting for it at Slitherine's site for a Loooong time. Thanks.

[Rocko911]

Well I am both perplexed and amazed that no one has answered my original question? I mean someone who has SC2 would have bought this game by now, so hopefully we will hear a comparison. I also have just bought CAW and have no problem spending another $50 as long is the game has enough to differentiate it from SC2 and make it worth my while. From what I can gather there is little to no diplomacy in Commander but more supply issues, is this correct?

[ravinhood]

All bets are off on actually following the historical flow of WWII.

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See, this is something I don't understand why&nbsp;the hell would you want to play a wargame to the historical flow? Why would you want to play to the actual same outcome? It doesn't make sense. You are playing these games to "change history" to show what you could have done had you been in command. I don't see the point of playing a turn based wargame hoping it turns out like a movie of the actual war. That would be boring as hell and one of the worst wargames ever if all things became historical FLOW. The only thing that needs to be there is historical SETUP that's it as far as history goes. You get what was perceived to be there at that point in time. After that nothing should follow any FLOW or LINEARITY or the like. In all actual fact all games never really follow the flow anyway as soon as the human player makes his/her first move. You change history the very first turn, be it how you attack Poland (if you play the Axis) or what you research, what you set to build your first turn from then on nothing is historical or flow in truth. Also as far as the historical flow it has been done and proven time and time again that Operation Sealion works in a wargame, but, didn't realistically. I've seen Britian taken out in the early portion of all these grand scale wargames more often than not. It's usually very simple and very easy. Even in the board game models it was just as easy. You, no one, can model perfect historical flow, nothing is going to happen identical to how it happened then from the word go. It might take you one extra turn/month to take a Nation or one less. People/players need to get off this historical flow/accuracy of the way the war played out attitude. It's not what these games are intended to do not a one of them. Even 3rd Reich didn't&nbsp;followed the flow of the war. I know I've played both board game and computer game. It just simply isn't going ot happen or is meant to happen in the "game".
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Now, beyond that it doesn't need to follow the flow tit for tat of history what these wargames do need is good UI and gameplay functions. There should be the ability to stack at least 2 steps. There should be the terrain effects modifiers and commander modifiers&nbsp;and there should be an excellent AI or at least enough difficulty levels to make the game challenging even for the most hardcore diehard computer players who can beat Big BLUE with their eyes closed. There should be reinforcement rules that fit inline with a certain reality that units couldn't get reinforced when they are surrounded or all of their zones of control are blocked/occupied. (Things the origional&nbsp;Panzer General and this new C:EaW don't seem to take into consideration). Things also like you cannot place new units in a sieged city where all of the zoc's are occupied. Those are things that don't make sense, has nothing to do with the Flow of History. Just bad game design.
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Most of these games problems is not whether it follows the flow of history, it's the fact that the AI in all of them suk. Developers spend so much time making pretty pictures they forget to make the game a challenge at all levels. The hardest difficulty of many of them is no better than a fair Normal difficulty if that. I've played too many and seen too many shabby ai's that historical flow doesn't even enter the picture before well this game suks because the ai suks....add another one to the crappy game pretty pictures shelf of games. I find it hard to believe if these developers went to college to learn how to program how they forgot to learn how to make a challenging game ai. Surely they remember the crappy ai's they had to play against growing up?

[JudgeDredd]

ravinhood
...Now, beyond that it doesn't need to follow the flow tit for tat of history ...

hahaha - you said tit!

[ravinhood]

Yes, tit for tat is a deep south saying for 1 to 1 values or exactly. Where you from England or something? haha

[SMK-at-work]

I play-tested it for a few months, got the Tester's cheap version, and have gone back to SC2.

IMO this game had great potential - it has many great original features such as oil, manpower & shock.  Convoys are better than SC2's convoy routes.  The idea for research is better, having tactical bombers & strategic ones is better.  Having hexes is better.  Info presented on the unit icons (supply, state of the troops) is better.

But overall it's failed to live up to what it could have been with all that.

It's a resource hog - I can't see any good reason why a 512mb machine has to be graded as "low spec", the manner in which research has been implemented is clumsy and anachronistic.  Partisans in Holland in 1940, but none in Yugoslavia in 1943?? 

Supply in SC2 is more explicit but very similar to CEAW in effect IMO, apart from the effect of leaders.

Leaders in SC2 are quite different - they are more representative of major "rear echelon" effect - ie they are a supply source as well a a source of combat bonuses, and they can be KO'ed - SC@ is better in this respect IMO because of the supply-chain efect you can get from leaders.

The whole look and feel are sub-standard IMO.

It's an OK game - worth a B, could do better.

[colberki]

I reckon this game is arguablly the worthy spiritual succesor to Panzer General.&nbsp; I already bought three copies (one from Slitherine and two from Matrix)!! Thats another story!
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Well done to both companies!
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Sure&nbsp;I look forward to some minor tweaks. else all is very well. now I gotta get back to solvingmy oil problems as the Axis!!
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[targul]

I am awaiting someone to give this a real why this game should be bought even though I have SC2.

Also I shall wait until the patch is released learned long ago games should never be bought prior to the patch.

There were comments on Making History. That game is a joke. It has absolutely nothing to do with WWII. Bought it played it laughed at it put it away. Tried it after the patch. Laughed some more and put it away.

[SMK-at-work]

I thought MH was pretty good as a geo-political-economics game.&nbsp; But as a wargame not so flash for sure......

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: targul
I am awaiting someone to give this a real why this game should be bought even though I have SC2.

Well I can't persuade you because I don't have SC2. All I know is I am in love with this game. It's not a fanboi statement. It's a genuine "I like this game". It is as people have referred...a great successor to the Panzer General series. I'm sure it's not officially linked to that series, but that's my take on it...and it appears I'm not alone there.

They are few on these threads but still it appears to be the case that the majority (of the minority) of the people on these boards with SC2 do not like this or think it's too similar to SC2. Yiu'll have to make your own mind up by the look of it.

[JudgeDredd]

The whole look and feel are sub-standard IMO

I suppose the "horses for courses" phrase applies [:D]

[SMK-at-work]

Absolutely - many people will like this game more than I did - all I can do is give my opinion - it's worth what yuo pay for it&nbsp;[;)]

[Rocko911]

Disappointed so far that they do not have anymore type of units. I heard at one time they had light armor during the beta testing. That is one thing that I did not like with SC2 was the limited number of unit choices.

[MikeToth]

Judge - if you had the choice between Battlefront and this game, which would you go with??... I have 50 bucks to spend and am trying to make a educated decision.... since you are "the judge" I respect your opinion.

tks much

Mike

[Titanwarrior89]

I would go with Commander europe at war. Ive played both. They are both great games but Commander plays much better. So that would be my vote for ya[:)]

ORIGINAL: MikeToth

Judge - if you had the choice between Battlefront and this game, which would you go with??... I have 50 bucks to spend and am trying to make a educated decision.... since you are "the judge" I respect your opinion.

tks much

Mike

[Canuck_jp]

ORIGINAL: MikeToth

Judge - if you had the choice between Battlefront and this game, which would you go with??... I have 50 bucks to spend and am trying to make a educated decision.... since you are "the judge" I respect your opinion.

tks much

Mike

They're really completely different games. The scale is different, the amount of complexity is a lot different, sounds like CEAW is more of a grand strategy type game with research and (some) diplomacy. Battlefront is a small scale, tactical game.