Korsun HPS/Tiller version

[PeterF]

But it did lead to a problem. Example: I receive turn 7. But the PC crashes. Aaarg! need new hard disk.

That did occur to me. But, frankly, what are the odds?

Yes, No Rreload is the way to go. Or, at least, make it available as an option. As Reagan said to Gorbachev, 'trust but verify'.

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Adam Parker
...

However, I do have one thing to ask:

Elmo you've got me stumped. LOL... fess up. Who are you?

The one with the kilt...

[Adam Parker]

LOL

[e_barkmann]

Can someone kindly explain the mechanics of how this is gonna work?

Once the patch reaches beta status I will let you know.

- no, I don't have an ETA

Cheers Chris

[dwinston]

The HPS series takes way to long and is not particualry user friendly. It is very much like a traditional board game.

V4V/WaW had several key functions that made it much easier to play - the big one being seniding a HQ unit to an objective and all the subordinate units automatically went to the objective as well.

While HPS can go all the way down to the company level, generally the battalion level seems the easiest to handle (unless you need to spread your line out and don't have the troops to do it.)

The combat mechanics of WaW were much faster and games could be completed within a reasonable amount of time. HPS turns take forever.

The detail in HPS is excellent, and tghe gameplay seems to be accurate, but there are some design imprvements that would really help (like using the HQ to send units in a direction or helping you identify units within a command which is dsperately needed given the huge amount of units on the screen).

Maybe Matrix could get the rights to the V4V and WaW game system and publich some additional games.

Thoughts?

[Black Cat]

Originally posted by dwinston
The HPS series takes way to long and is not particualry user friendly. It is very much like a traditional board game.

V4V/WaW had several key functions that made it much easier to play - the big one being seniding a HQ unit to an objective and all the subordinate units automatically went to the objective as well.

While HPS can go all the way down to the company level, generally the battalion level seems the easiest to handle (unless you need to spread your line out and don't have the troops to do it.)

The combat mechanics of WaW were much faster and games could be completed within a reasonable amount of time. HPS turns take forever.

The detail in HPS is excellent, and tghe gameplay seems to be accurate, but there are some design imprvements that would really help (like using the HQ to send units in a direction or helping you identify units within a command which is dsperately needed given the huge amount of units on the screen).

Maybe Matrix could get the rights to the V4V and WaW game system and publich some additional games.

Thoughts?

Some things I discovered by reading the manual and asking on the various HPS Forums.

First in the opinion department:

1. Your "reasonable amount of time" to complete is someone elses just right.

2. Some people think the Game is " user friendly" since it`s basically a point and click/drag system.

3. The Game is very fast on a fast machine if you use the F8 key to speed up the AI phase, which usually takes less then 90 seconds in the large HPS Campaign Games .

In the facts department:

4. You can let the AI move any or all your units to an objective by 2 clicks of the mouse.

5. The V4V and WaW games had 1/10 of the units on Map compared to the HPS large scenarios.

6. You can highlight all units within a Formation, and each counter in every formation is color coded according to unit, you can also get the command radius of each HQ with one mouse click.

7. Almost all units can breakdown to smaller units and then recombine.

I too would like to see Matrix republish the old V4V and WaW Games.

[Wallenstein]

Originally posted by dwinston

Maybe Matrix could get the rights to the V4V and WaW game system and publich some additional games.

Thoughts?

I don´t know about the rights, but the V4V and WaW are great games with many options and functions - I liked how artillery and headquarters were resolved as mentioned above - such enhancements could be interseting improvements for future TAO/KP projects.
I remember when I had my first glance at TAO2 I thought it was a new type of the old V4V games.

[Wilhammer]

If I could fix one thing in Operation Crusader it is all those little independent Italian artillery units.

You get a cloud of them, all moving very fast, and they functioned as great recon assets, IMO, ruining the play balance of the game.

This is also a problem in PzC, the totally unrelaistic use of fast moving AT and ART assets to do forward recon and ZOC encirclements.

Come to think of it, this is something of an issue in TOAW-COW as well, corrected by good scenario designers.

The TAO3-KP system is wonderful in having movement friction modeled with different costs for no man's land and enemy territory vs friendly territory.

[dwinston]

First in the opinion department:

3. The Game is very fast on a fast machine if you use the F8 key to speed up the AI phase, which usually takes less then 90 seconds in the large HPS Campaign Games.

I use that and it is much quicker - but still slow (of course my machine is only 733mGHZ

In the facts department:

4. You can let the AI move any or all your units to an objective by 2 clicks of the mouse.

How?

6. You can highlight all units within a Formation, and each counter in every formation is color coded according to unit, you can also get the command radius of each HQ with one mouse click.

I know how to highlight all the units in a formation, but how do you get the command range? The problem is that with all the units it is difficult to see the hightlighted ones, particularly if they are stacked. V4V/WaW mad it much easier to see (of course they had less unites as well).

I too would like to see Matrix republish the old V4V and WaW Games. [/B][/QUOTE]

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Joe 98
..............
HP needs a "combat advisor" that comes with SSG's Korsun Pocket.


It is one on the great innovations of wargaming.

So true! Can you imagine trying to move and unmove all of those units to try and get decent odds?:eek:

[Paul Vebber]

Keep your eye out for Battlefields - it is our own "WEGO" operational level game (battalion sized units, 1km per hex, 8 hour turns) - WITH FULL EDITOR and over a dozen VFV-WaW quality scenarios. NOte the use of "clock time" in coordinating the plotting of moves and combat!

http://www.battlefieldsww2.com/

[PeterF]

Looks promising, Paul. I always wondered why wargame developpers were taking so long in adapting Combat Mission's winning, realistic, and PBEM friendly system. And, yes, I know Battlefront wasn't the first, put they did the most to popularize the WEGO format.

I visited the Battlefields forum. The screenshots look cool, but a couple of questions:

1- One of the screenies featured horders of units and mountainous stacks. Can BF avoid the counter inflation that some say plagues the John Tiller clones?

2- Using WEGO, on an operational scale, how does the designer handle the initiative factor?It's possible to imagine, for example, units defending in a front reacting illogically to an attacking force.

[Fred98]

I look forward to Battlefields.

I was a keen player of W@W and Battlefields is the replacement.

I must say I nevwer enjoyed the large scenarios but if it had a Combat Advisor somthing like Korsun Pocket that woud be fansastic!

[John Pancoast]

Originally posted by Black Cat
Some things I discovered by reading the manual and asking on the various HPS Forums.

First in the opinion department:

1. Your "reasonable amount of time" to complete is someone elses just right.

Which is fine.

2. Some people think the Game is " user friendly" since it`s basically a point and click/drag system.

True.

3. The Game is very fast on a fast machine if you use the F8 key to speed up the AI phase, which usually takes less then 90 seconds in the large HPS Campaign Games .

That does nothing to speed up your turn, moving countless units, which is what I at least was mentioning.

In the facts department:

4. You can let the AI move any or all your units to an objective by 2 clicks of the mouse.

Only until you make contact. Then, unless you want to see some real strange stuff/take huge losses, you have to move them manually.

5. The V4V and WaW games had 1/10 of the units on Map compared to the HPS large scenarios.

Because they had the scale right, operational, instead of trying to mesh two different scales.

6. You can highlight all units within a Formation, and each counter in every formation is color coded according to unit, you can also get the command radius of each HQ with one mouse click.

Yep.

7. Almost all units can breakdown to smaller units and then recombine.

No thanks. To many as is

I too would like to see Matrix republish the old V4V and WaW Games.

Yep.

[John Pancoast]

Originally posted by dwinston
First in the opinion department:

3. The Game is very fast on a fast machine if you use the F8 key to speed up the AI phase, which usually takes less then 90 seconds in the large HPS Campaign Games.

I use that and it is much quicker - but still slow (of course my machine is only 733mGHZ

In the facts department:

4. You can let the AI move any or all your units to an objective by 2 clicks of the mouse.

How?

Highlight any unit in the organization you want to move. Alt - right click to where you want them to go.

6. You can highlight all units within a Formation, and each counter in every formation is color coded according to unit, you can also get the command radius of each HQ with one mouse click.

I know how to highlight all the units in a formation, but how do you get the command range? The problem is that with all the units it is difficult to see the hightlighted ones, particularly if they are stacked. V4V/WaW mad it much easier to see (of course they had less unites as well).

There's a hot key, can't remember it off the top.

I too would like to see Matrix republish the old V4V and WaW Games.

[/B][/QUOTE]

[Kent Pfeiffer]

Originally posted by Wilhammer
Tiiler's Philosophy:

PzC: Series. A lot like old SPI titles, like Panzer Group Guderian, or Drive on Stalingrad, or even like GDW's Operation Crusader or Suez '73, White Death.

If only that were true. The scale of PzC is entirely different than those games. I agree with John Pancoast that Grand Tactical is a poor choice of scale for a World War 2 game.

[/QUOTE][/B]
I hope the KP system gets the long legs of PzC and finally provides us with a steady Operational System for PCs.. [/B][/QUOTE]

Me too.

[dwinston]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber
Keep your eye out for Battlefields - it is our own "WEGO" operational level game (battalion sized units, 1km per hex, 8 hour turns) - WITH FULL EDITOR and over a dozen VFV-WaW quality scenarios. NOte the use of "clock time" in coordinating the plotting of moves and combat!

http://www.battlefieldsww2.com/

Paul,

This looks a lot like the Operational Art of War - which I thought was good, but not up to WaW. Part of that goes to the ease of the interface and the readability of the graphics. Also there was in WaW a similiar "Combat Advisor" that exists in Korsun. Will that be in battlefields?

[Erik Rutins]

Gentlemen,

I'd rather not hijack this thread, but if you're interested in Battlefields!, keep an eye open for a website update this week or next, as well as more info on the Battlefields! forum. The existing "sticky" threads on that forum also have much more recent screenshots and a lot of additional info.

Originally posted by PeterF
1- One of the screenies featured horders of units and mountainous stacks. Can BF avoid the counter inflation that some say plagues the John Tiller clones?

Well, the unit density really depends on the scenario and the designer. We have a number of small, medium and large scenarios planned for the initial release that should provide something for every wargamer. By far the most common unit type is the battalion, although there is support for companies as well. There is also a realistic stacking limit for each hex based on the unit size, so stacks should not generally be unusually large.

2- Using WEGO, on an operational scale, how does the designer handle the initiative factor?It's possible to imagine, for example, units defending in a front reacting illogically to an attacking force.

General orders tell units how to react when faced with an unexpected enemy. Reserve orders are also in the game, which allow a range and a reaction condition to be set. The range can be from 1km to 5km. The reaction condition can be set to respond to enemy movement, friendly units fighting on defense, friendly units fighting on offense, or a combination.

Thanks for your interest, for more information please check out our forum and keep watch for the upcoming website update.

Best Regards,

- Erik

[elmo3]

Speaking of stacking, which Erik just did, it's a bit too abstract in KP for my liking compared to PzC. An across the board, no pun intended, four units per hex means that four flak btlns are considered to take up as much space as four infantry regiments.

[gus]

Originally posted by elmo3
Speaking of stacking, which Erik just did, it's a bit too abstract in KP for my liking compared to PzC. An across the board, no pun intended, four units per hex means that four flak btlns are considered to take up as much space as four infantry regiments.

I have to agree with elmo3 here in that the stacking rules in KP are a bit too basic and can be quite restrictive in areas where units are densly packed. I would like to see it evolve so that stacking limitations is a function of unit steps rather than simply units, i.e. 16 steps is the stacking limit, the equivalent of 4 fully stepped infantry/armor units in KP terms.

-g