TOAW vs. the competition

[hank]

I see lots of comparisons between TOAW and the Decisive Battles (DBWWII) series (Battles in Normandy-BiN and Battles in Italy-BiI) but IMHO the closer comparison is between TOAW and HPS's Panzer Campaigns (PzC). Its been many years since I played TOAW but from what I remember PzC's is similar in many ways.

I played DBWWII's BiN and Korsun Pocket for a couple of years. BiN and BiI have much more abstraction that TOAW or PzC. IMHO some of the abstraction takes away from the game for those who like to know numbers (how many tanks, artillery pieces, men, vehicles, etc. are in a unit). DBWWII games use steps as mentioned above to help the player gauge the strength of a unit. I would rather see numbers personally ... of course that's personal preference. The one thing that's turned me to play other games more than the DBWWII games is the die roll. It can control the outcome of the game if you consistenly get bad rolls in your assaults (which are random numbers generated by the computer) ... even if you build an overpowering assault. I know there needs to be a factor of "chance" integrated into these military strategy games to simulate fluctuations in moral, weather, ground conditions, etc .. etc... etc. ... but personally I can accept the way PzC's and TOAW integrates chance into their games better than the way DBWWII games do.

I still enjoy playing BiN and its a great game but lately I've played PzC's and HttR more ... waiting for TOAW to come out.

just my $0.02

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

If you're at 1024x768 or better resolution, you can tell what percent of the turn is left, and roughly what percent you'll use if you attack right now.

Imagine that now, that is a major improvement. If you can bet your pizza that 50% really means 50% (or at least very close) I will be strongly tempted to purchase the new version.

You can trust it just as much as the bars shown on the combat planning dialog. It will show you if you're making an obvious mistake, like moving a unit most of it's movement and attacking, but I wouldn't trust it much further than that.

[macgregor]

I'll hold off on any criticism until I've played the new version. I read where you said 'weeks' away from release. If that's true then I'm terribly pleased. Whatever you guys have done to improve TOAW, at least you didn't lallygag about getting it released. And for that I'm grateful. I realize that 90% of the work done on this game was done for free, if not writing code then designing scenarios. At those wages, who knows how far this game can evolve. The least I can do is buy a copy.

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

The HQ button doesn't do every major unit type, I don't remember anyone asking about that (I also think it might be more confusing than useful.) It does bring HQ to the top on the first click, and Artillery on the second click.

Siberian HEAT said he would provide you with a list of all the suggestions received. Evidently this did not happen.

Confusing? No not the least bit confusing. Exactly the same as using the existing HQ button except that one could select infantry, armor, artillery, AT or engineers to bring to the top of the stack. It was actually a handy little feature, which makes me wonder why Norm stopped with the HQs.

Regards, RhinoBones

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones
.............. to bring to the top of the stack.

But which stack is it in to begin with?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

But which stack is it in to begin with?

The button in question affects all stacks at once.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

The HQ button doesn't do every major unit type, I don't remember anyone asking about that (I also think it might be more confusing than useful.) It does bring HQ to the top on the first click, and Artillery on the second click.

Siberian HEAT said he would provide you with a list of all the suggestions received. Evidently this did not happen.

Confusing? No not the least bit confusing. Exactly the same as using the existing HQ button except that one could select infantry, armor, artillery, AT or engineers to bring to the top of the stack. It was actually a handy little feature, which makes me wonder why Norm stopped with the HQs.

Regards, RhinoBones

Siberian HEAT did provide me a list. I also went to SZO foruma and several other places looking. It's my fault, not his.

Norm may have stopped there because he wanted to put in stronger C&C rules at one time, and that made finding the HQ much more important than the other types. I can see artillery too, since it's behind the lines and easy to miss. I'm not convinced that the other types really benefit from that button, but I haven't played enough to know it backwards and forwards yet. It's something that we can add easily in a future release.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
We've also added the 'N' hotkey (and a bunch of others). I would need to look up the specifics, but the 'N' hotkey cycles to the next unit that isn't attacking or in a reserve status and has movement points left. It's a key that I expect that some of the veterans won't use much, but people like me that are more interested in strategic play and less in the tactical aspects will appreciate it.

The trouble with this is that a unit with 1 out of 15 move won't be much use.

Yes, this was a quick hack that's better then nothing. Eventually, I'd like to add remembering whether or not the unit has moved, and a complete system for that similar to the Warlords series.

There are several little changes that we've made to the interface, you can now tell at a glance exactly what the supply, proficiency and readiness of the selected unit is. If you're at 1024x768 or better resolution, you can tell what percent of the turn is left, and roughly what percent you'll use if you attack right now.

That's pretty good.