Competition?

[Sybma]

What´s erverybodies thougts about the coming game General Commander: Watch on the Rhine?

Looks a bit childish but the one problem i can not get used to with COTA, the terrainfeatures/ hights is much clearer this way.

Thanks

[HansBolter]

Never heard of it. Can you provide a link?

[Misty99]

http://www.stragames.com/gc/wwiigc.htm

[goodwoodrw]

Pass

[GBS]

Well, I think it looks interesting and I will kepp an eye on it.

[Neilster]

The first blurb reads like a Chinese instruction manual but it certainly looks pretty snazzy. It seems to zoom down to individual vehicles, a la Combat Mission, from operational scale maps.

I'll be interested to see if there's any substance.

Cheers, Neilster

[Canuck_jp]

Also a pass.

[Agema]

It looks like it might be good. But nearly all these games live or die on their AI, and an awful lot of them emerge from the loading page as a corpse, so I'd be very wary without a specific recommendation.

[GoodGuy]

Well check out chapter 3 on that website.

http://www.stragames.com/gc/chapter3.htm

If you scroll down, you'll find a list of values simulating the weapons displayed in the game.

Tank Cannons:

• Range - 2000m.
• Range Damage - 0 <- I'd call this "blast radius"
• Armor Damage - 30%

Not sure if there's a sophisticated algorythm to calculate damage. All cannons have the same range, and I'm not sure what 30% means... penetration/damage at max range? Anyway this game won't take into account details like the range/penetration advantage of KingTiger and Panther tanks, compared to Sherman tanks - for example.

Bazooka:

• Range - 500m.
• Range Damage - 0
• Armor Damage - 10%

500 meters ??? Troops were lucky when they hit something beyond 80-90 meters. Again, 10% at max range and hmm 100% at let's say 30 or 40 meters? Or is it a fixed value? Who knows....

Machine Gun

• 150m.
• 0
• 0
• Armor Damage - 7.5

Armor damage.... ah-ha.... lol. Well MG fire directed to the observation slit of a tank harrassed or maybe even blinded the driver or a crew member, but almost 10 percent damage.... come on... 20 mm guns ok, but a MG?

Assault rifle

• Range - 750m

Rather 400m, if at all. These weren't G3/G36 rifles.

Grenades

• Range 150m

150??? ummm.... hmmmm, athletes throw these darn discuses like hmm 77 meters?

Air Bomb

• Range - 0
• Range Damage - 400m.
• Armor Damage - 100%

100 damage? Interesting... only if a bomb lands on the top of the turret.... oh and 400 meters radius? maybe a 500kg bomb could create such a blast - if at all, fighters usually had rockets or 250kg bombs for tank hunting.

It looks like this game is rather about 3D than anything else, and it generalizes technical details. I'd prefer to have the Panther ai-engine in a 3D environment. [:D]

[goodwoodrw]

Even taking the poor English translation into account, it makes a Chinese manual for a lawn mower look like a piece of fine crated English literature!!!&nbsp;[:D][:D][:D] &nbsp;

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy
It looks like this game is rather about 3D than anything else, and it generalizes technical details.

Which is ok if you just look at it from a division/corps commander's perspective. The real question with this game will be if it can capture the feel of the Bulge and give the player the choices and restraints their real world counterpart had.

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy
I'd prefer to have the Panther ai-engine in a 3D environment. [:D]

Just the map would be nice - I don't need little 3D-tankies doing "vrooom" on it [;)]

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Neilster]

I just realised where I had seen the "look" of the game before. It seems to be modelled on the virtual battlefields from the TV program 20th Century Battlefields by Peter and Dan Snow, even down to the flapping banners.

Cheers, Neilster