Games similar to SPWAW

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 7:16 pm

Tombstone: IMO, Sudden Strike stinks as an RTS, precisely because there's so much lacking; AOE beats it in a landslide. It don't even have one of the very things key to RTS, which you mentioned: resource management. After a little of the glitz has worn off, an awful lot of people will see how shallow that game is compared to AOE and other RTS games (you can't even pick you own units either!). There's not even a random scenario/campaign generator, for crying out loud. It stinks to the heavens. Maybe someone will get a brain later and develope random scenario/campaigns for it, or put in some resource management.

jerrek · Post by **jerrek** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 8:09 pm

i actually prefer set forces in most scenarios. It allows for better balanced (and historical) scenario creation and is a strength of games like campaign series. For instance in a desert campaign the addition of one or 2 88's to a german force that in realitity may have had none (not all formations had them surely) could make a lot of diff against happless matilda 2's and crusaders and turn an interesting scenario into a turkey shoot. It also stops the addition of things like elephants which if used in correct manner (well behind line on a hill for instance) could be an invunourable killing machine (and not historically available to any but a few "lucky units").

Panzer Capta · Post by **Panzer Capta** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 9:00 pm

As i mentioned earlier, i havent played Sudden Strike as of yet (perhaps this weekend) so i cant give an opinion.

However, in my opinion, the limitation of resources in any scenerio and in any game, would seem to present quite a challenge to the player. For one, it would require tactical decisions not only to achieve objectives, but also to conserve resources (i.e., infantry and equipment)to meet those ojbectives....just an opinion.

In response to Charles22..Sudden Strike certainly doesnt have the flexible playability as SPWAW and Campaign Series, and that alone is a huge drawback. From a business perspective, I dont quite understand how any designer of computer wargames could produce a product without the versatility of designing scenerios and campaings. Let us be thankful for SPWAW.

max · Post by **max** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 9:07 pm

Well at the risk of getting flamed

i have played the sudden strike demo and i like it .... i dont compare it to SPWAW at all as its a total different game real time for one ... and from what ive seen in the demo its pretty fun to play ... i have all the close combat games and didnt like them much but this game even though has the feel of close combat it really seams to be alot better in my mind ... i havent bought a pc game in a long time now ... i have over 110 pc games to date and just recently bought the ps2 and have been playing lots of Madden football

but i think ill buy sudden strike anyways .... my 2 cents %

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 11:36 pm

jeerek: You're approaching this from the wargaming angle, not the RTS one, though of course as I said it's a failure at both. Resource management, key to RTS is missing, as I said, but also another key is the ability to make your own forces as you go. From the wargaming perspective, yes set forces have there place. In wargaming, or perhaps I should say "turn-based/phase-based" play either set forces or buildable forces can be quite at home. OTOH "real-time" is pretty exclusively the turf of buildable forces, and there's only one game I've played with set forces that I enjoyed that might normally fit into the general real-time market, Fantasy General and that was turn-based.

Panzer Captain: If you consider where you want to move a tank, or useage of the hospital truck as "resource-management" then the RTS genre would have a problem with that description, for RTS resource-management involves production of things and so forth, a bit more involving, and yes, they very often aren't unlimited. I hate to see someone waste their money on rubbish, so I hope you enjoy it, but as it stands it's sure rubbish to me. Actually that upcoming "Empire Earth" or whatever it's called, may be a lot better WWII RTS modeling (at least for the period where the player is in that era).

Panzer Capta · Post by **Panzer Capta** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 12:35 am

Originally posted by Charles22:
Panzer Captain: If you consider where you want to move a tank, or useage of the hospital truck as "resource-management" then the RTS genre would have a problem with that description, for RTS resource-management involves production of things and so forth, a bit more involving, and yes, they very often aren't unlimited. I hate to see someone waste their money on rubbish, so I hope you enjoy it, but as it stands it's sure rubbish to me. Actually that upcoming "Empire Earth" or whatever it's called, may be a lot better WWII RTS modeling (at least for the period where the player is in that era).[/B]

Charles22: I hope i enjoy Sudden Strike as well. I am somewhat of a collector of wargames, particularly WWII. So, in that sense, i would likely have purchased it (Sudden Strike) in any event. Based upon the RTS games that i have played (Close Combat Series), i do much prefer the turn-based tactical genre (SPWAW, Campaing Series, Tigers on the Prowl, Panthers in the Shadows, Dragons in the Mist). Although i find the Close Combat games very good, i have never really enjoyed the mouse workout (click fest). I know i can employ the pause button, but it seems like cheating.

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 1:00 am

There are some RTS games that are starting to come out nowadays that do not include a resource management element in their games. These games are attmpting to make something that would better be called a real time tactical game. I agree that it doesn't have the depth of AOE. What it does have is a very nice balance between offensive action and defensive action, and it makes a game out of more than just what you do with your units. Something about these real time games that is really cool is that there is more going on than a single mind can handle. That requires the player to choose where he directs his attention. (This all applies to multi-player mostly, the single player experience in real time games is pretty weak for the most part) These kinds of games, in a multi-player situation that is at all competetive, makes for a very deep and exciting experience. To label a game as stinking to the heavens based on the presence of features that are expected to be in a genre is narrow minded. Games cannot break ground without trying to provide something different to the player.

Tomo

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 1:46 am

That's what I get for being narrow-minded; playing by myself and all.

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 3:24 am

Does that mean you feel that I'm wrongfully calling you narrow minded because you play mostly single player and therefore my arguments against what you had earlier stated aren't relevant? If so, I'm sorry.

If that's not what it means I don't quite get it.

Tomo

Fabs · Post by **Fabs** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 4:45 am

To go back to the original question, I have not come across any games like SPWAW.

The Talonsoft series is like SP3 (or rather the other way around), but without the 3D effect.

I don't know Tigers on the prowl II and Panthers in the shadows. If I am not mistaken they were around at the same time as SP1, and had some better features but poor graphics. I doubt that they hold a candle to SPWAW in its current sahpe.

The old SP games and SPWW2 don't compare either. SPWAW is a much more refined product, even within its limitations, which are few.

Sudden Strike is rubbish. It's arcade stuff. I'm sure some people will like it, but it is way underdeveloped as a game system.

Close Combat is an altogether different game, and too limited in so many ways. Cool graphics and a promising game system, but again too many limitations to what you can do, and the modular development sucks.

Combat Mission is promising, but is altogether a different game once more. The 3D graphics compare unfavorably with SPWAW.

In SPWAW we have excellent bi-dimensional graphics. The 3d stuff available in CM is primitive, and sometimes outright weird.

I am greatly looking forward to the way in which Matrix will eventually develop the SPWAW concept.

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Fabs

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 6:17 am

Tombstone: It means that since I play by myself, one of the very things you pointed out was

the single player experience in real time games is pretty weak for the most part

that this may be why I'm keyed up on features, because the real-time experience lacks something from that perspective. It's not just that it's missing "a" feature, but a great many that are inherent to RTS. Can someone make better RTS than AOE and the general features of the market? I would think so. It's nice if an RTS tries to improve on RTS, but SS is a step backward (but more towards characteristics of FPS). I only see SS as great for RTS, featurewise, if it came out a year or two before AOE. I'm not an RTS fan by any means, and I have only AOE to my credit, but at least one would expect the genre to progress, and losing features key to the genre doesn't accomplish that, at least not in SS's case. Later.

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 6:25 am

Sudden Strike is definitely underdeveloped as a system as SPWAW fans are used to it. But we have to realize that it's development is an order of magnitute (or two) more complex a system to refine. Eventually, If SPWAW turns occured for the player during his turn in real time and he had the opportunity to pause at any time and consider his next course of action we would have a turn based system that solved many of the issues dealing with order of movement, opportunity fire, and recon. If you had 4 minutes of 'real' time to move units and give orders and so forth then simultaneous movement would defeat singular enemy unit op-firing debacles and also make a player pay in time for sending forth recon units. The bounding tactics used by so many throughout history would come back into use and the concept of maneuver and fire would be expressed in a truer form. After a turn was over it would be saved into its current state and then sent to the other player. Artillery could be more responsive AND more avoidable... Certainly, it would be a massive adjustment to the current sceme.

Tomo

MarkFroio · Post by **MarkFroio** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 8:45 am

I've wondered about East Front/West Front for awhile. I just saw Europe in Flames for $19.99 at Babbages. Is it worth getting? I've been playing Steel Panthers since SP 1 came out, and I really enjoy it. Does Europe in Flames offer anything that you can't get with SPWAW? What are the campaigns like? Is it worth it now that you can buy it for less than $20?

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"In the field of opportunity it's plowing time again."

Panzer Capta · Post by **Panzer Capta** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 8:51 am

Originally posted by Max VonLoben:
I've wondered about East Front/West Front for awhile. I just saw Europe in Flames for $19.99 at Babbages. Is it worth getting? I've been playing Steel Panthers since SP 1 came out, and I really enjoy it. Does Europe in Flames offer anything that you can't get with SPWAW? What are the campaigns like? Is it worth it now that you can buy it for less than $20?

Just my opinion Max.......but dont miss out on that deal. It is well worth it.

lnp4668 · Post by **lnp4668** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 9:47 am

And I just purchased it for $39.99 |-(

Fabs · Post by **Fabs** » Sun Dec 31, 2000 1:32 am

I don't know how Sudden Strike developed from the demo that I downloaded earlier this year, but in that there were no machine guns, fro chrissakes!

The terrain system was totally flat. Very pretty buildings, and very cinematic encampments, but flat as a pancake.

The command system was also very rudimentary.

In theory you could control lots of troops, but there was no subtlety to the way you could use them.

You could form "instant" battle groups just by selecting troops in a wide area and sending them off in this or that direction, but you could not keep it cohesive from one order to another.

My verdict: arcade rubbish.

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Fabs

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Sun Dec 31, 2000 4:55 am

-Charles, fair enough I see your point, but I persist in by high opinion of sudden strike. I don't think its a 'great' game, but I certainly enjoy some of the things it does offer that can't be found elsewhere at this point.

-Fabs, What I think is awesome about the Sudden Strike single player experience is the pause feature. It allows you to basically get turn based control with a real time execution. In the full version there are TONS of unit types. In a really large defend scenario in the russian campaign I started off by pressing pause and then I queued up a string of commands for a significant percentage of the units. Gathering up a reserve of my scattered tanks, sending riflemen forward a bit to lay mines and return to the resupply truck. Pull back AT guns that are too far forward for my taste, and set up several hot-keyed unit groupings according to my various counterattack plans. It really is a lot of fun. I'm not saying it's the end of all games, I'm just trying to express what value it does have.

Tomo

Fabs · Post by **Fabs** » Mon Jan 01, 2001 2:25 am

OK, Tomo, but what about MGs? In the demo there were none, not in the squads and not as separate crews. Are they in the game now?

Do they have hills now? What maximum elevation?

I also felt that ranges were a problem. Everything was happening far too close.

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Fabs

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Mon Jan 01, 2001 2:33 am

There are MG infantrymen, and stationary fixed heavy machineguns that require trucks to move arounds. Not perfect, I know. The pure infantry aspect of the game could certainly have been tweaked toward truer infantry combat.

Tomo

Dagobert · Post by **Dagobert** » Mon Jan 01, 2001 3:24 am

Originally posted by Max VonLoben:
I've wondered about East Front/West Front for awhile. I just saw Europe in Flames for $19.99 at Babbages. Is it worth getting? I've been playing Steel Panthers since SP 1 came out, and I really enjoy it. Does Europe in Flames offer anything that you can't get with SPWAW? What are the campaigns like? Is it worth it now that you can buy it for less than $20?

The campaigns are pretty good, (except for the random ones which are a bit of a drag). I especially enjoyed the sea-lion one and the German North African campaign in which you command one of Rommel's recon units is pretty nifty as well. Not quite the realism of SPWAW, as has been mentioned, but you'll be getting a lot of game for twenty bucks.