Matrix Games Forums

Thanks Larry, very interesting.

I thought the game was pretty much the same as III, just will have a few updated features and some changes to the UI.

ORIGINAL: Grognerd

Always thought this game had a good following. After reading the features list, I will buy it. I'm a sucker for the map editor and designing monster games. Now I will have 700 X 700 to deal with! HA! I can see a Modern Game 2016 to 2020ish similar to GDW's Third World War series, Europe and the Mid East on one Map! Darn, need to start looking at OB's now! I'll find the latest copy of the Air Force Magazine annual edition, that had a pretty good world forces OB always listed.

The new Time Stamp will go a long way to normalize the turn sequence.
The Naval rules will help a modern scenario and some of the WWII Pacific stuff.

I sure hope they add some flavor to the Air Module, especially for modern air war.

Doing historical games where the outcome is already known is OK but I think doing stuff in the near future where the outcome is unknown is where I want to start.

The game series is old and just reskins and repeat of the old. Most players want something "new", I know I do. I'm not even sure I'll get the next Steel Panthers after reading about it on the main discussion page.

Today's games are more about the ai and the ai doesn't seem to improve with the sequels. Oh they say they do but most improvements aren't significant enough to buy the same game a 2nd or 3rd or 4th time around.

The only series I've seen an ai improvement on in a long time was Shogun 2 Total War. Then with Rome II they went backwards about 10 years. [:-] Fortunately there are mods that made it better. Thank the gods for a community that loves the series even with the bad apples.

Basically I have no intention of buying this chapter of the TOAW. I just don't see a need.

It is difficult to make a determination given the information available to everyone except perhaps the inside team who have access to the pre-release code and version. I know I would love more information and a crack at testing or updating some scenarios, but I'll wait to pass judgement until we have more information. Until then I just keep messing around with Elmer and PO orders which is pretty entertaining.

Larry is playing this a lot but it seems he is playing pbem and not against the po. So whether or not the po is any better is not known to the community. I do know Ralph has said he is working to improve the performance of the po.

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Larry is playing this a lot but it seems he is playing pbem and not against the po. So whether or not the po is any better is not known to the community. I do know Ralph has said he is working to improve the performance of the po.

Did someone mention my name? So um......my EAW ( Europe at War ) pbem game with Thomas finally finished. He won as the
Allies by capturing Berliln in late '44 by the Americans. The Soviets were held up by my valiant defenders deep inside Russia. So that
gives me more free time to experiment with the Elmer Assist feature.

I've been running my B41 mod scenario through it's paces by playing against the PO. I need to playtest it again because I've
added 5 Soviet Strategic targets that the Axis can potentially bomb. The target itself is a unit that has only 100 civilian squads as
equipment. If the unit is destroyed then there's a 10% drop in the Soviet production. There's five of these so there's the potential to
drop Soviet production by 50%. It wasn't that way during the war and it's not historical but I thought it fit and added it. When you get
your copy of this scenario you can delete them if you'd like. Just remember to delete the 10 events that go with the target system.

I'm finding that the PO is a lot more adept than I remember. TOAW III had a PO that did a lot of pee pee dancing and this version
of the PO doesn't do that. This PO ( TOAW IV ) has purposeful movement and I've seen it do things that were questionable as well.
I've seen HQ's moved up to near the front of the front lines. I've seen units embarked on a train at the front lines. I've seen little
groups of enemy units trying to be guarded by a single friendly unit. But other than that it's working pretty well. You'd have to watch
it a while to see what I mean.

I've been tweaking the objectives and therefore the tracks so that there's no gaps in the coverage in the front lines. I just make a little
adjustment and watch what happens. I've been doing this for about three days now and so I'm getting better at guessing what
works. I wish I could post some screenshots to show you guys.

First of all let me state clearly that my PBEM opponents are doing just fine and there's been no family
emergency in real life.........but you know you're playing a wargammer when he tells you that his mom
has died and he can only manage three turns per day instead of four for a while.