Matrix Games Forums

Varies on scale.

Grand Strat I like WW1 Gold

Operational Decisive Campaigns Barbarossa

Grand Tactical Command Ops

Tactical WEGO is Combat Mission, Turn based Steel Panthers\Squad Battles and real time Graviteam Tactics

I can't choose an overall winner. Though Combat Mission and Graviteam probably have most hours invested.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

I'm on the march!

To Washington D.C.?

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

V for Victory series [&o]

Ooh...Remember those. Some of the best! [8D]

ORIGINAL: Zap

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
I'm on the march!

To Washington D.C.?

To Harford Rd, Baltimore ... to raise the ghost of the greatest!

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
Plenty can post here offering up compromises, but thirty years on and there is no game that can do it right. It's pathetic I tell you, and I'm fed up with it, and I'm prepared to do something about it ... join with me!

Ah you too you are designing your own computer wargame? [;)]

I hope I can count on you to be our French Connection [;)]

ORIGINAL: rico21

Advanced tactics is the best dramagame[:D] of the world because you can add what you want in your composition of division.

I vote for Advanced Tactics also, however, it is on equal par to me with Rule the Waves. Love both games equally.

I've often done the..."if I was stranded on a desert island" thing in my head. It would have to be a game with very long legs.

So for me, TOAW IV. Another consideration would be WitP AE, but I would certainly have died on the island before finishing.

For those of you whom haven't tried it or checked it out Advanced Tactics has it all. You LITERALLY can mod it to any age or Genre.

I see that no one mentioned Panthers in the Shadows and Tiger on the Prowl II, by HPS. I still play them via DOSBox. The graphics were ugly in 1995 - so, imagine today [:(] But the simulation engine and the level of detail are still unparalleled. [&o]

Campaigns On The Danube has done Napoleonic strategy best I think.

You don't really know where your corps are if they aren't actually in sight; so you have to send couriers to order them to advance to some town or other, but you don't know if the message has been delivered and it will take two days to arrive anyway.

Here's an AAR by Rasputitsa: tm.asp?m=4297140

Overall the best war game engine that models just about 90% of operational to strategic warfare while remaining true to the board war gaming heritage and having an endless supply of scenarios and a pretty decent AI is hands down the TOAW system.

Decisive Campaigns: The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris

I think SC3 War in Europe and World at War do grand strategy pretty well.
Both games are a nice balance with enough depth without ever being overwhelming.
Looking forward to the WW1 remake as a SC3 title.

ATG and TOAW are very flexible, both certainly deserve their pedestal.

So many games that bring awe, like JT PzC or WITE and WITW, but they can easily overwhelm the player.
I want to give honorable mention to the newer PzB series, which have IMO are pretty impressive in their own right.

Id like to mention Command Ops 2, AKA:

Red Devils over Arnhem
Highway to the Reich
Conquest of the Aegean
Battles from the Bulge

The only bad thing I can say about this title is it almost plays itself. And that their new GUI layout doesn't lend itself to playing on a single display.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

You need to take the best of the boardgames that you liked and put them into a computer game. What else good are computers other than to save space and take on some of the calculations/resolutions and dice rolling? But for some reason the good to great games of the past aren't so much getting this treatment, rather we are getting tons of flimsy/buggy/overthought games. Plenty can post here offering up compromises, but thirty years on and there is no game that can do it right. It's pathetic I tell you, and I'm fed up with it, and I'm prepared to do something about it ... join with me!

Try this. Best and most accurate duplication of BattleTech war game on a computer.

Oh, I wasn't even talking about Science Fiction.

Fans of the famous Advanced Squad Leader board game (Avalon Hill Company) may think that Tigers on the Hunt is their equivalent in the computer environment.

However, I vote for Heroes of Stalingrad.

Without any doubt it has to be World In Flames. Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect, but boy does it do a fine job.

The game is a strategic level game that covers the entirety of World War II. Why do I say it's done it best? Well the game is designed for either side to win, it's designed so that players can make decisions that were not made in WWII, because of the need to play balance, there are liberties taken with counter values...... and yet... and yet.

Despite the above there are five outstanding aspects to the game:

- The designers purposely have tried to harmonise the rules and not have a million different individual rules for each side or situation. There is a solid framework in place that, on its own, ensures that every game has a WWII feel. Even if one side heads off to Sweden, or Spain or Turkey, the rules that govern the major powers keep the overall feel on a WWII footing. Very cleverly done.

- Whichever Major Power one plays, the game provides the owner with a proper feeling for the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats faced by the leaders of those powers in WWII. The challenges are immense - especially if playing with oil.

- I could not believe it when first Planes in Flames and then Ships in Flames came out. This is a strategic game but here I am playing with every aircraft from WWII (and 'what ifs' beside) and every individual ship from light cruiser up. That is mad! It is also fantastic.

- The game counters are wonderfully full coloured, bright, easy to read, and sit there just gagging to be played. As someone who prefers understatement this colouring shouldn't be a positive but it is here - it just works, without dumbing down the game. The one area ADG (the board game makers) got wrong was the maps. The CE has improved things quite a bit from the hideous version that went before - but Matrix World In Flames makes no such mistakes and simply provides the war gamer with pure, unadulterated World Map porn. It's just filth.

- Last and by no means least the replayability/fun factor. The way the various combat, weather, search, initiative, turn length, turn end and US entry rules are formulated means that replayability is infinite. There are so few guaranteed successes. The game needs to be played a very, very long time before sterility sets in. In some ways linked to this is the game's fun factor. This is a complex game, but what ADG seem to have realised is that you don't have to break a wargamers balls in the interests of realism on every little point. Make a complex game yes sure - but make even the complex aspects of the game FUN!

Yes, World In Flames has done it best.

Yes, World In Flames has done it best.

As much as I have wanted to like World in Flames over the years, I have not. This game has no editor that allows users to modify it and no Computer Opponent. What good is a game if it can't let the computer run the game? And the WiF designer's may be good, but there has to be an editor so that users can make changes, especially for $99! Therefore, for the purposes of this thread, WiF is a complete fail.
On a more general note, the size and complexity of WiF would exclude it from being at the top of many gamer's list. It is good for what it is and I'm not trying to disrespect it or its fans, but again I would have to say it is not the best wargame.

Edit: And every time I look into the WiF Forum, don't I see them squashing big bugs? That's one of the main problems I was griping about. I know this [bugs] can't be avoided, even V4V and 3R discovered a bug or two after release. But it seems that games in this age are bug-riddled vermin infested embarrassments.

For those of you whom haven't tried it or checked it out Advanced Tactics has it all.

Another one that I would like to like, it is great for what it is, but [from left to right in the screenshot below] look at the graphics from the 1920's, and its use of generic weapons systems, and CARTOONS !!

If this is the best ever, again, we are legitimately so disappointed in what the 2000's has given us. Let me do developer's a big favor and release them from their efforts to make new games. First go back to the 1990's and create what was good about gaming, and then use your talents to improve them ... but only where improvement is needed. Don't create what was never meant to be. Create a boardgame that uses a computer to present itself. Don't worry about attracting the younger generation - Afrika Korps, Tactics II or Panzer Blitz will do that on their own. Were any of us attracted by the fancy boards and counters of the 60's and 70's ? Were any of attracted by the amazing graphics and speed of the 80's computers ? Hella no. We were drawn in by the wonder and amazement of Historical Simulations [&o]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

For those of you whom haven't tried it or checked it out Advanced Tactics has it all.

Another one that I would like to like, it is great for what it is, but [from left to right in the screenshot below] look at the graphics from the 1920's, and its use of generic weapons systems, and CARTOONS !!

If this is the best ever, again, we are legitimately so disappointed in what the 2000's has given us. Let me do developer's a big favor and release them from their efforts to make new games. First go back to the 1990's and create what was good about gaming, and then use your talents to improve them ... but only where improvement is needed. Don't create what was never meant to be. Create a boardgame that uses a computer to present itself. Don't worry about attracting the younger generation - Afrika Korps, Tactics II or Panzer Blitz will do that on their own. Were any of us attracted by the fancy boards and counters of the 60's and 70's ? Were any of attracted by the amazing graphics and speed of the 80's computers ? Hella no. We were drawn in by the wonder and amazement of Historical Simulations [&o]

You are complaining about Graphics? I don't see you ragging on Steel Panthers or the other graphics challenged games mentioned here. As for Cartoon that is low blow. The modding process allows for better graphics the base game delivers the ability to change most everything in the game. And it can be any age any Genre. Now I am not sure you can model Helicopters and the combat engine isnt really designed for line of sight but everything else is possible.