Tactical Studies Series HPS Sims

[RedwoodForest]

I'm looking at the Tactical Studies Series, published by HPS Simulations...

Tigers Unleashed: https://www.hpssims.com/Pages/Products/TSS/TU/TU_D.asp

Point of Attack 2: https://www.hpssims.com/Pages/Products/POA2/POA2_D.asp

Now, these games look old and janky, but I doubt that would deter many who browse this forum. Even still, is there anything to recommend here at the tail end of 2025?

To my untrained eye, Point of Attack 2 just seems like an older Command Modern Operations, and Tigers Unleashed seems like an ultra-realistic WWII tactical game. Is there anything that sets these oldies apart that has yet to be matched by titles that have come out since? All opinions welcome.

[RedwoodForest]

Well, I grabbed Tigers Unleashed. I’ll update here with my thoughts after I’ve spent some time with it.

[pkpowers]

I wish they could have updated the dos based Tigers on the prowl and panthers in the shadows instead of these new monsters.

It really shows the difference between realism and playability.

The new tactical series is so realistic its unplayable. I'm not sure if it will ever be updated again, it can be a real processor hog with turns taking quite a while.

It is a shame, because those 2 dos games I mentioned were perfect. They just needed moved to this century.

[RedwoodForest]

I have just finished the tutorials for Tigers Unleashed and agree that the game can be a real resource hog with how much is being processed "under the hood." Frankly, it's all quite overwhelming right now. I had to drop down the number of cores being used to 4, as per the game's suggestion, so that it would not outright crash. I would not go so far as to say it's unplayable (yet), but I do question just how much all these 10,000 different fiddly bits, buttons, and levers truly affect gameplay in any noticeable way. I haven't even scratched the surface, but I will say the tutorials do a good job of making things seem less frightening. All said, I have had a good time with the tutorials and look forward to playing the scenarios on various difficulties, followed by PBEM.

I emailed Scott and he said he's hard at work on another patch for Tigers Unleashed but that it's "feature complete."

Side note: I have seen frustration across various forums going back 20 years that there is no central discussion location for HPS Simulations games. So, I channeled "be the change you want to see" and created a Discord server. The invite is here: https://discord.gg/qCvdpqDJ It's good for one week. Afterwards, I'll accept any PMs for the invitation so as to prevent spam bots, which I've seen happen before with permanent invite links left on the web.

I suppose all 5 of us that care about any of these games can have a hoot.

[pkpowers]

I would be willing to try a pbem with you ; I have Tigers un and also poa2

maybe pbem would make it more playable for me , in poa2 I found where I couldnt get the AI to open fire at all