Coral Sea Allied Decisive Victory!

[flintlock]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Does CAW have the same wise-*ss endings that CCAW has?

[:)]

Haven't noticed anything similar within CaW.

[AlvinS]

Great job Flintlock. I got lucky getting out with no damage. The only airstrike the Japanese were able to send my way arrived in a Thunderstorm, and none of them made any hits.

Mark

The ending screen just gives you your final score, and victory level. It would be a nice addition if they did this for CAW in a future patch.

This is a fun game.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: LarryP

Hey Adam! Just curious, what games would be your comparison for "the best game I've bought this century?" [&:]

Well, I shoplift a lot [:D]

No, till now my candidates for "War Game of the Century" would be in order:

- Battles in Normandy (SSG/Matrix)
- Squad Battles Vietnam (Tiller/HPS)
- Close Combat Invasion Normandy (Atomic/Red Ant)
- Age of Empires 3 (Ensemble/Microsoft)
- Julius Caesar (Koios/Matrix)

Shogun Total War just misses out for a terribly buggy v1.0 release with some shoddy gameplay decisions introduced with Mongol Invasion. Coulda been the contender.

My other notables are all 20th Century [;)]

Carrier's at War tops the heap and that says a lot of itself, how much more so for a version 1.0 release? My .02.

[JD Walter]

Hi Adam,

Agreed. CAW is one of the best games I've bought this year. I have over 10 other computer games waiting for me to open them, and I keep coming back to CAW for "one more". The mark of a classic ...[;)]

[MarkShot]

This was a much easier battle as the Japanese. I massed my four carriers against the Americans and quickly took out one carrier and then the other. After that, I literally cornered the Americans in the South East end of the map. It was an easy invasion of Port Mo. The only reason the Americans finished the scenario with anything still floating was due to lack of time on my part. If I had another few days, I guess I could have sank them all. Screen shots follow.

[MarkShot]

v1

[MarkShot]

v2

[MarkShot]

v3

[MarkShot]

v4

[MarkShot]

v5

[AlvinS]

Good job Marc!

I am playing the Eastern Solomons as the Americans at the moment. I'll post the result when I am finished. So far I can say that AA has been very effective for both sides. This is the most aircraft I have seen shot down since I started playing CAW. This should be interesting.

[Richard III]

Not to be a Dick, but is there a reason your using the old CCAW instead of CAW for the AAR`s ?

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: Richard III

Not to be a Dick, but is there a reason your using the old CCAW instead of CAW for the AAR`s ?

[:D] [:D] Tricky Nixon.

[MarkShot]

ORIGINAL: Richard III
Not to be a Dick, but is there a reason your using the old CCAW instead of CAW for the AAR`s ?

Richard,

Yes, it is what I am playing at the moment. I'll probably play some CAW when the first patch or two has been done. I was interested to see what the legacy game holds. So much so, that I bought it.

So, is my use of the legacy CCAW and posting offending you? I suppose I could stop. (However, I did check with Matrix and they didn't see a problem with it as I am part of the family of Matrix beta testers like Panther Games and testers of their third party offerings too like AGE Studio.) Let me know ... if it really seems inappropriate, I'll just lurk quietly.

Thanks.

[CactusAF]

I enjoy post from mr markshot. He tells us where game came from and others tell us where its now and where it maybe go if all is good. Thanks.

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: CactusAF

I enjoy post from mr markshot. He tells us where game came from and others tell us where its now and where it maybe go if all is good. Thanks.

I enjoy all of Mark's posts too. They are all very informative. I also enjoy the posts about CCAW as it shows me how the CAW game has evolved, never having owned the CCAW version myself. [;)]

[Richard III]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

ORIGINAL: Richard III
Not to be a Dick, but is there a reason your using the old CCAW instead of CAW for the AAR`s ?

Richard,

Yes, it is what I am playing at the moment. I'll probably play some CAW when the first patch or two has been done. I was interested to see what the legacy game holds. So much so, that I bought it.

So, is my use of the legacy CCAW and posting offending you? I suppose I could stop. (However, I did check with Matrix and they didn't see a problem with it as I am part of the family of Matrix beta testers like Panther Games and testers of their third party offerings too like AGE Studio.) Let me know ... if it really seems inappropriate, I'll just lurk quietly.

Thanks.

Mark, not at all [;)] I enjoy the AAR`s being an old fan of CCAW. I thought you might be setting up for a comparison of the 2 games.

I have very fond memories of CCAW. perhaps after a patch or 2 I`ll think the same way about CAW which just doesn`t " feel" right in several areas as compared to the first version.

Thanks

[MarkShot]

Richard,

I did do some comparison here:

tm.asp?m=1499587

I am glad I have both games. I am always amazed regarding how many superb strategy wargame titles existed in the early 1990s. To find that there were games with quality dynamic campaigns, realtime hexless game play, and pseudo-3D isometric maps like in Sid Meier's Gettysburg; just blows my mind. I started playing PC games in 1992/3 with Lucasfilm's Battle of Britain.

I missed so many of these great games, since I was a flight sim nut to the exclusion of everything else until about 2000 or so. I didn't even know they existed. Most I never heard of. Some like SMG, I heard of, but ignored (no wings). It was arthritis and some other health issues which grounded me and gave me a chance to broaden my horizons. So, when I find games like CCAW, AOD, RTD, SMG, 1830 ... I get so very excited, since for me it is all brand new. I am just so glad that I can still purchase these games/strategy guides and run them under DOSBOX. Otherwise, what a true loss for me not to know any of these fine products.

I just got a brand new machine: LCD/CRT, 4 CPUs, OC'd @3.2GHz, 8800GTX 768Mb video card, 4Gb RAM, ... Yet, many of these older DOS titles easily run circles around today's blockbuster hits for atomosphere and quality game play.

[JD Walter]

Hi MarkShot,

Your new PC sounds really great. I've a custom-rig built to my specifications by Falcon NW, and 'tho it's now nearly 6 years old, I like it so much I've no interest in swapping it out for a new one.

(However, I know I must eventually ... it's AGP and to upgrade my videocard any further, I'll need a new motherboard ...)

I second your observation on the eary DOS titles. I started PC gaming after college in 1978, and I was fortunate to watch the evolution of many of these designs from their inception. For example, I got to watch (and play) Grigsby's sequential inprovement of "Guadalcanal Campaign" (Apple, SSI 1982) into "War in the South Pacific" (Apple, SSI 1986), then to "Pacific War" (PC, SSI 1992), culminating in his current "Uncommon Valor" and "War in the Pacific" here at Matrix.

All of which I own (and still have).

Interestingly, I find I now prefer simpler, more accessible games. I use to eagerly await anything Gary did, jumping on Carrier Force, Carrier Strike, Kampfgruppe, USAAF, Objective: Kursk, Warship, North Atlantic '86, etc. etc. as soon as they were released. (These days, I'm more drawn to CAW or C:EaW.) I think, due in part to the limitations of the memory and CPU, the older titles hit the right mix of historicity, complexity & ease of play. Today's efforts, though marvellous programming (and research) achievements, are unfortunately a bit too deep for me to play. (Though I have picked all of them up, including 3rd-party expansions like TankerAce's "War Plan Orange"! [:)])

I think the Apple II, 386pc's, and 486pc's, were the right machines for their time. They allowed us to transition from board wargames to computer, and simplified a lot of the ruleskeeping (and -lawyering) that bogged down the hobby. I remember how much more elegant Gary's "Pacific War" was than SPI's "War in the Pacific" boardgame - both were true monstergames, but I actually finished "PacWar". And not just once - I played 6 games through with opponents (3 as each side), and had a 7th going when my opponent relocated.

I am glad to see Matrix republishing many of these classics. Especially as some are getting updated to run on the newer O/S'es we now have. I can recommend John Tiller's Campaign series to you (think AH's "PanzerBlitz") and the update of Atomic's Close Combat III. Both occupied many, many entertaining hours of my life when first released. Although the latter is "semi-real time", it is pausable at will, and can be set to move slowly enough that it is easy to watch everything that happens.

I am also glad to hear of your joy in rediscovering many of these earlier titles. Age has done nothing to diminish their fun. Whereas most designs today emphasize speed and graphics over substance (especially the RTS'), these earlier games educated as well as entertained. Grognards may well have disagreed with the quantifications used in the game's database, but such disputes encouraged one to go to the library and read on the event(s) and the equipment, just to find out what was being argued over. I learned a lot of WWII history this very way ... [:)]

Hope my recommendations help. Keep doing your AAR's. They're a lot of fun to read; It's good to see pictures of the old games that don't get run that much anymore...[;)]

[MarkShot]

Def Zep,

This new machine was built by Falcon-NW. Delivered in March of this year. My last machine was built by Falcon-NW in 2002. Prior machines were built by either DELL or Micron.

Falcon is a good company and I believe worth the premium you pay:

(1) You get retail quality parts. DELL uses those OEM cut corner parts. You get the name, but clock times and everything else are watered down.

(2) They take the time to do it right. You can talk to technically competent people and not a call center. I got my laptop from DELL, since I can get onsite support for it in the Far East. But I prefer dealing with Falcon for support any day.

(3) Before Falcon, I would start with someone else's machine and then start changing the hardware. With Falcon, I just ship them additional parts like: extra optical drives, SCSI card, tape drives, ...

I loved my 2002 MachV, but it was time to move on. I've been enjoying this machine, 2007 MachV, but I must say that two consecutive memory DIMM failures gave me lots of grief (lost time and work); despite having all forms of backups. It wasn't their fault, but still it bugged me.

I've incorporated into this machine two SCSI tape drives with a total single run backup capability over night of about 100Gb. I have a 250Gb hard drive and can always partition backups across multiple nights. The important thing is simply that the system partition is, at least, captured by single backup volume.

---

Best Falcon support story ... at the end of my three year warrantee my mobo died. I shipped the machine to Falcon. I didn't want to have to rebuild the machine system environment. So, I asked them to replace the mobo not with a new improved one, but the exact same one. Well, you know, you cannot get replacement parts after three years. They found a machine in the office with the same mobo and gave me that. When I received the machine back, I didn't have to do anything, but turn on the power. MachV 2002 has now been passed to my wife to replace her 2002 mid-range Micron PC.