Why do I play...really?

SPWaW is a tactical squad-level World War II game on single platoon or up to an entire battalion through Europe and the Pacific (1939 to 1945).

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lnp4668
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Post by lnp4668 »

Originally posted by Toundra:
Its a long time since i played by Email.
i am available for one or two game.
my game version should be 7.0
and i don't play with command on (its boring =)

my email Drakken22@hotmail.com

if you want to bash me just send me an email with your scenario (anywhere any period its np)

favorite army in order

FINNS
US
USMC
GERMANS
RUSSIANS
FRENCH
SCOTTS <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
JAPS
ITALIANS

Ok. I'll set one up and send it to you.
"My friends, remember this, that there are no bad herbs, and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators."

Les Miserables
Frank W.
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Post by Frank W. »

Originally posted by Mumdaan:
I do )

I have my original copies of SP1, 2 and 3 )
Kinda hard to play any of them on current hardware tho.

same with me.

and it´s quite hard to play without
all the advanced features from SPWAW
only one i would play,would be SP3
becuase of bigger scale and MODERN
weapons

thanx

frank
RichardTheFirst
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Post by RichardTheFirst »

WOW, fascinating stuff here.

Always loved wargames, started with chess with 12 years old like WB but my first real wargame was a the old boardgame TacticsII (had about 15). As soon as I had a PC (with 30 or something), strategy and war games immediately were my favorites.

Once upon a time about 7-8 years ago I think, I passed in a games store and saw a big box called DEFINITIVE WARGAME COLLECTION 2, I have it in front of me (long time no see <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> ). It was all games with 2 - 3 years old at the time. I thought "why not?" lots of wargames and really cheap.

Let me tell you the games that collection have (I installed them all):

From Intracorp/Three-Sixty
- HARPOON II (never played)
- HARPOON II Battleset 2 (also)
- HARPOON II Battleset 3 (also)
- V For Victory - Utah Beach (also - complicated instructions)
- V For Victory - Market Garden (also)
From Koei Corporation
- Genghis Khan II (boring)
- Romance of the 3 Kingdoms (boring)
- Operation Europe: Path to Victory (never played)
From Colorado Computer Creations
- High Command (can't remember)
From Spectrum Holobyte
- Command HQ (can't remember)
From SSI
- Panzer General (DOS) (played several battles until I found SP1)
- Steel Panthers
- Wargame Construction Set II: Tanks! (played several: fun)
- Clash of Steel (played several until SP)

In conclusion - I can't remember none except the ones from SSI. But SP was by far the one.

I played battles for more than 2 or 3 years against the AI with SP1. Even after I discovered SP2 I return to SP1 once in a while for 2 or 3 more years. Always Solitaire play. I had absolutelly no contact with anyone who plays this game. But I knew one thing - I love this!

Until recently I was looking at Gomes Domain for new games previews and reviews and suddently I thought in looking under S for Steel Panthers. That's how I found that there was a 6.1 version of the game. WOW - have to download that. What did I do! Falled in love instantly and couldn't rest until I read all the manual and played the tutorials.

One day accidentaly I opened the game from the SPWaW Menu and saw the Matrix site in there. Ahhh (I was bored) OK, let's have a look - that's how I discovered this community and had a warm welcome from Wild Bill at the first day.

The rest is history, my friends <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
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ruxius
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Post by ruxius »

To Les the Sarge :
I was referring to the fact that very often some games care too much about graphics and forget about some rules of realism ..for instance Suddenstrike deals with units in a Starcraft context...weapons are far from what SPWAW realizes..SPWAW owns a deeper modeling of balistic and effectiveness while Suddenstrike shows weapons set to auto-fire , no suppression ,ammo,and a green bar modelling 'damage'...bah ! very far from SPWAW..
graphics in Panzer general 3D are something ridicuolous regarding the concept..I am referring to a quite fool design of animations...
I can never explain it enough...you have to look at such games
They had some succes maybe only for their 3D approach to the subject...
Close combat is really cool as regards graphics and also the game engine is very interesting..
really different from Sudden strike...
where Close combat looses against SPWAW is about
deepness and customizability of features , nations involved and theatres of war..
In other issues it wins..


Again I repeat some choices Matrix did about SPWAW still was oriented to give respect to its philosophy rather than oriented to commercial business..(for instance they are delaying modern SPWAW to better model the game engine for different concept of weapons !!!)

Hope I cleared my point

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: ruxius ]</p>
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Charles2222
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Post by Charles2222 »

A bit of a folow-up on MOHAA. I've played the single player demo some. One thing to look out for though. When you change the resolution of the game, do it carefully. If you don't your game will for all practical purposes lock up, and your mose won't click on the controls very likely to change the resolution again.

Should you get locked up, reboot and go to run the game from your start button, finding the EA Games directory. If you go past that, you will see an autoconfigure, use it as that reset the game and then you can click on the shortcut without locking up anymore. I can jack quite a few settings up, but I'm thinking the resolution rate above 1024 X 768 was the one giving me problems (1280 X 1080 or something?). Man those trees and bushes are awesome.

I played a while, and got past the 2nd set of enemy troops, which had an armored car. I knocked it out, but I could've swore it took three bazooka hits to knock it out (the men operate off of a lifebar, so maybe the armor does to). That was a pretty big gas. Next enemy area I run into a couple of other soldiers joining me and my mate, and we go into something of a foggy area. It was pretty nice, but one thing that really tripped me out was seeing an 8ft brick wall, where in very good detail I suddenly saw a potatomasher flying through the air. What a deal! Man, I may enjoy the demo too much to want to buy it (as if that makes any sense).

Now if I could only find out how you use the binoculars (they're probably in some readme file).
Les_the_Sarge_9_1
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Post by Les_the_Sarge_9_1 »

Combo message.

Richard I have both sets Definitive Wargames set one and set two. You didnt really miss anything for the some of the reasons of the following comments here...

Ruxius, guess what you commented on is what I wanted to say but didnt want to jump to conclusions.

Most of what I have seen in a lot of wargames (past and present), is pointless glitz to attract the attentions of the low forehead moron audience I think most times.
Its why the film Pearl Harbour will never be better than a "blank cassette candidate" to me.
To much was wasted on entertaining people that havent a clue that they are being sold crap. Its why they use modern swearing in historical settings. Its why you get a sex scene that was never required in older films of much superior substance (hey I aint a prude, I watch adult films, but only when I want to).

Not sure if anyone here remembers Chris Crawfords "Patton Strikes Back" game. Its old enough it came on two low density 3.5 disks. It had no glitz and was a damn good game (still is). All you got was a well drawn map, and arrow looking symbols for the various units. If you wanted data on the unit you had to employ the menu commands. Excellent game from a wargamer position. It had low forehead morons need not apply written all over it though. No cool graphics, no silly computer resource wasting pointless effects at all.

When I see the phrase 3d I automatically assume "its a toy game". I call em "toy" games, when they are being aimed at people that reeeeeeally dont want history they want arcade.

Nothing wrong with "toy" or "arcade" style games of course. Even morons have a right to have fun. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
Alas for those that champion RTS, until they can clearly distance themselves from their arcade bretheren, I aint calling them "real" wargames.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
RichardTheFirst
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Post by RichardTheFirst »

I agree there is a lot of s**t one sees called wargames.

But I wouldn't go that far in saying all RTG's (stands for Real Time Game right?) are like that. Some like Close Combat (I do like that series, have all of them) I do consider Wargames. Sudden Strike is fun but it is more a Combat game with very nice graphics.

At RTG's one needs to plan the battle before, that could be considered tactics, maybe not strategy. Anyway there is the combat component afterwards. True, at a different level, because one has no time to think like in a turned based game. But isn't that closer to what happens in reality? Doesn't a commander prepare his tactics for the battle, instructs his subordinates and then leaves the most of the work to them being dependant with only relative influence on their behaviour and the hazards of war?

In RTG's a player is closer to the role of the commander, in TBG's one is closer to the role of god. In my opinion.

(Just a parenthesis to stress that SPWaW is the most successful TBG I know in making a player assuming the role of the commander).

Don't take me wrong, I do prefer turned based generically speaking but that is because most of the Turned Based Games are "intelligent" and a lot of Real Time Games are NOT. That doesn't mean there aren't very good RTG's and very bad TBG's out there.
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Capt. Pixel
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Post by Capt. Pixel »

"Back in '62..."
- I lean back in the rocker and take a slow puff off my pipe - <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

I was growing up as a child in Kenya. I used to read a British comic book series (who's name I can't recall), where the boy hero had an adult inventor buddy who'd created whole armies of Radio-controlled army men. Infantry, tanks, air - you name it.

Of course, these two would save the world from the enemy, rescue the damsel in distress, kick butt for God and Country, etc. All great action hero venues.

I used to think that it would be so keen to be able to play with all those nifty RC army men.

And NOW I CAN. I don't even need to scare-up a bad guy, one comes with the game.

And only Matrix could make a 40 year old dream come true. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Thanks guys.

(BTW - anybody remember the name of that comic book I referred to?)
"Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible. "
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ZinZan
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Post by ZinZan »

I started (back in 1976) with Ancients & napoleonic tabletop gaming, advanced to Squad Leader etc before discovering PC's and the joy of playing V4Victory games <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> I must have owned several hundred PC wargames, and still own about 40 sets of tabletop rules (not played in 10years though <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> )

I've owned and played all the SP series, this is by far the best. In fact this, Civ3 and TOAW are the only games I play regularly on the PC anymore.

The support from Matrix is immense, and that is the major reason I bought all 3 MC's, to support them financially and hopefully help them make sure CL is near perfect.
ZinZan <br/> Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasanter - and much safer. <br/> Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein.
Mikimoto
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Post by Mikimoto »

Hello.

wargameing since the last 70's... I own sp1 and the first campaign disk from ssi. I own too the "Steel panthers Arsenal" that includes sp1, sp2, sp3 and all the official patches and campaign disks. I own MC-NA and MC-LV.

I own lots of cardboard wargames, perhaps 250. I own almost 100 pc games, too. But the games I play almost every day are spwaw and spww2...

I have played sp2ww2 and all the versions from spcamo. I have downloaded and installed spww2v4 and v5... and the infantry issue is gone in v5, Warhorse. The game is great.

I have spwaw installed (in fact ver 6.1, 7.0 and 7.1 beta). I have been playing SPWAW since 1.0 came out. The game is great, too.

Now, I am waiting for SPMBT and Combat Leader.
Desperta ferro!
Miquel Guasch Aparicio
Randy
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Post by Randy »

I got my start in wargaming by playing with ROCO Minitanks in the early 60's. Then while in the service I got serious about modeling 1/87th scale military vehicles. I got into computer wargames with the old game "The Perfect General." At the time I thought that was the ultimate game. In 95/96 came Steel Panthers, and I haven't really touched another military game since (I did try OAOW, and found it boring.

Wild Bill I enjoyed reading about your involvement in the creation of SP. I remember seeing you name in the original game and the sceario disks when they first came out. And thanks for the parachutes!! The original SP's of just "placing" paratroopers in the middle of the enemy's position was really weak.
Semper Fi
Randy

The United States Marines: America's 911 Force-The Tip of the Spear
Les_the_Sarge_9_1
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Post by Les_the_Sarge_9_1 »

Those Roco Minitanks were originally marketed for model railroaders if anyone is interested.

I have seen catalogues and they still make scores of them too. And in alot of cases they make cost effective and entirely nicely made items. And thats the opinion of a model making fan.

The scale is a bit off from other industries but oh well that wont hassle a miniatures gamer much. And the items are often not represented by other model making companies (around here in Ontario at least).

I have a bunch that I put some time into improving them for model making purposes. The detailing is good in a large portion of the line.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
Frank W.
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Post by Frank W. »

several tries of downloading MOHAA (singlepalyer demo) did not work.. seems to much traffic on the servers.
Kanon Fodder
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Post by Kanon Fodder »

Like several of you here, I am a "Wargame Geek" from way back ...

I was heavily into "Squad Leader" when it first came out, but started to lose interest because the newer versions made it very difficult to keep up with rule changes.

I had heard that Avalon Hill was going to reissue the rules in a binder format so that we wouldn't spend half our evening looking for corrections and upgrades to obscure rules.

Even though a friend of mine and I were probably two of the first in Canada to own "GI: Anvil of Victory" we never played it because we wanted to wait for the upgraded rules.

Instead, what came out was ASL, which totally threw out the previous system and required heavy $$$ investment just to get started.
My friend did buy the first two or three installments of ASL but we never played it, because I didn't have my own version to study from.

I decided to go back to Micro-Armour rules I had been developing and by the late 80s had a version that I had semi-computerized on a C-64 to take care care of all the endless dice rolling that seems to be the bane of all board wargames.

Then I got divorced and had no room for a 4' x 8' wargame board ...

Fast forward to the late 90s when I finally had a PC that could play some of the more recent games.
Two of the games I had read about were "Panzer General" and "Steel Panthers". Seeing as they were now a few years old I was able to pick them up fairly inexpensively, and got "Steel Panthers Arsenal" for less than the original game alone would have cost.

I enjoyed both, but especially "Steel Panthers" because it reminded me so much of "Squad Leader" and Micro-Armour. The game is complex, but intuitive.

After a few years of playing other types of games I found myself reinstalling the "Steel Panthers" series and dabbling in wargames again. When checking for upgrades online I stumbled across SPWaW in early September and was blown away all over again.

Unfortunately the events of September 11th put me off playing for a few months, but I decided to check it out again last week and found the 7.0 upgrade and downloaded it.

I am rusty, but starting to get the feel of it, and still can't believe that it's FREE!

I am hoping that some of the friends I left behind when I moved to the USA will find the time to download SPWaW so we can PBEM or online.

SPWaW has put in a lot of the "I wish it had .." things I wanted in SP1/2/3 and is the best WWII simulation I have played - bar none.
Randy
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Post by Randy »

Les the Sarge 9-1, have you seen the new ROCO stuff? One of the newest is the Avenger HMMV. It is pretty good. For a while they even had the HEMTT tanker was was really good. Another company, Trident has done good work on German WWII armor (Panther, & Jagdpanther) They also have the USMC LAV series and AAV7's.
Semper Fi
Randy

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Wild Bill
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Post by Wild Bill »

I miss those scale modeling days. Cataracts in both eyes ended that for me, but with SPWAW and so many other fine games out there, I can still scratch the itch!

You're right Randy. Mike did listen and a lot of things (who could have everything he wanted... <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> ) were added over this two year period.

It's been a great reward to me personally to see this progressive improvement in Steel Panthers...a dream come true.

More than once David has said to me, "Well, you are getting what you wanted." And I have. I'm a happy camper!

Wild Bill
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Les_the_Sarge_9_1
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Post by Les_the_Sarge_9_1 »

Only thing more distressing than scores of models I havent finished (or even begun), is the scores of wargames not yet even played once.

But if my wife dumped me tomorrow, and I was forced to live on the street, I would stash my games and models at a friends hehe.
Would be a cold day in hell before I ever parted with a life time of enjoying those two hobbies.

My eyes are still excellent, (although some days I wonder), my hands are still the hands of a surgeon (although they ache a lot if I use them long), and so what if I will need to live to 300+ to ever have a chance at completing the use of all them items heheh. My models and wargames are all my buddies. Never been able to understand how some guys can arbitrarily turf some hobby items.

I have several good wargames for the computer, but Steel Panthers is the only one that rates an old friend currently. Dont think I could care if I had to let all the rest go.
I love it cause its so Squad Leader like. I remember the first Squad Leader with its programmed instruction method (just a few rules per scenario till you mastered all the game eventually).
I remember buying the ASL rule book and seeing the extent of the rules complexity (damn I was completely blown away). I think if I remember, I stopped playing for a couple of years just so I could forget how to play to make relearning easier. Then bought the first actual usuable game module called Beyond Valour (the Russian front mix).
But I was working at the time, money was easy to locate. I bought anything that was part of the ASL game regardless. I have the whole enchilada now (damn what a hefty price I could fetch on eBay).
The only way to make ya all understand, if you cant relate to us ASL players; just keep in mind that all the many ASL modules go for either 50 bucks for the small ones of 100 bucks for the larger items. Currently the games have more modules than I can recall off hand. More than 15 at any rate and that means 10+ at 100 and 5+ at 50 bucks. Last ASL Annual magazine was a 35 dollar issue, and there was 8 issues. So we are talking serious cash.

Only reason I dont aaaaaalready own the MCs all of them, is being on a pension is what it is.

Its about the same expense level for miniatures gaming unfortunately. A person can rarely have gamed both miniatures and ASL.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
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Post by Commander Klank »

I play SPWAW becouse I enjoy military history esspesally WW2. It's the best game on the market if you ask me (and It's free). I played tons of micro armor way back when I had room for that stuff, but now SPWAW is better (if you ask em).

But most of all I play for the challange and so far SPWAW hasn't let me down......

Thanks Wild Bill and all you guyss form Matrix!
Commander Klank

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Randy
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Post by Randy »

Playing the different games has caused me to increase my military book library. And that got me more interested in military history (more so than when I was in the Marines) so much that I've returned to school so I could work towards a masters in history. Its amazing, we spend more time discussing a single battle than some college classes spend on an entire war!
Semper Fi
Randy

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MarkFroio
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Post by MarkFroio »

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1:
[QB]In the end, the question "why do I play?" is all that is important.


You may as well ask why we find beauty in a sunset or joy in the laugh of a child.

I have played this game since SP1 days, and have bought scores of other games since then. Pretty much all of the other games are gathering dust. They're not bad games, and they are about things that interest me. It's just that I keep getting drawn back to Steel Panters. So to answer your question, I play this game because it's the most fun and challenging game I have played. Also, the SPWAW community is awesome. With new scenarios and campaigns being built all the time, there is always something new to play.

Thanks to everyone involved in this game. Please keep up the good work.
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