Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Gary Grigsby's World at War is exactly what he is after. You can play at least half the war in a couple of hours. I, personally, haven't played it much since my initial look into it for the very same reasons it would appeal to him. For me, it is too simple and the war goes by too fast. I started playing UV again last weekend and am leaning heavily toward picking up WiP soon to satisfy my need for an ultradetailed ultragrog grand strategic game, but for someone looking for a streamlined, fast paced grand strategic game WaW fits the bill completely.

First of all, thanks to everyone who has posted helpful suggestions here while I've been sleeping and working!

I already have Grigsby's World at War, I bought it in April 2005, and after a little experimentation I succeeded in playing a full game of it, which took me a whole morning. I mentioned to my diary at the time that it seemed "very complicated" -- this is a game whose manual runs to some 115 pages, so I don't see how anyone could call it simple! (A simple game, in case you want to know, would have a manual of one to four pages, like the early Avalon Hill board wargames.)

True, the playing time isn't excessive compared to a lot of other games, especially considering that it represents the whole Second World War; but I'm afraid the game totally failed to grab me, and I've never felt the urge to play it again. This is basically a subjective reaction, but I can find a few reasons:

1. The map doesn't give you much idea of what's going on. First, the screen is a distressingly small window on the world, and I failed to get much idea of the big picture by scrolling around. Second, even within a small area the map doesn't clearly show you what forces you've got in each region. As a visual device for assessing the game situation, the map seemed pretty non-functional to me.

2. The economic side of the game, the production queue, etc., seemed both complicated and unappealing -- and takes place off the map entirely.

3. I realized that I have a good reason for normally avoiding the Second World War and other 20th-century conflicts: the situation is inherently complicated, both strategically and tactically, and there's probably no way of making a simple game out of it, unless you abandon all hope of simulating reality and play it as a Risk variant.

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort
Calling the FoF UI a "bit clunky" is like saying WWII was a "bit of a skirmish." [;)] I do understand common British under-exaggeration, so a "bit clunky" probably really means "downright prehistoric" in American. [:'(]

ROFL! SoM, that was a very racist thing to say...and I absolutely agree with you. Over to JudgeDredd....go for it....I'll hold the coats [:D]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

Lastly, if you don't mind non-historical, Starships Unlimited is a very good 1-2 Grand Strategy 4X space game that has practically NO chores in it. I love the game, but it is the very essence of minimalist, semi-retro space fun. I believe there is demo floating around.

If you are interested in historical games, like For Liberty!(or Napoleon in Italy), Hussar games offers a free FULL VERSION of its first game 1848 and a nice demo of For Liberty!. Try these out to gauge if you would like Napoleon Italy.

Best,
SoM

Thanks, Montfortsson, those both sound like good and really helpful suggestions. I wouldn't have thought of looking at a space game, but now you mention it I don't know why not. I'm a long-time sf reader, after all.

And of course it would make sense to try a demo from Hussar Games before spending money. Well pointed out.

ORIGINAL: TheHellPatrol
"51 here and I never liked Led Zeppelin. More of a Moody Blues fan here.

53 here and I have tracks by both Led Zeppelin and the Moody Blues in my iTunes library. Amongst much else...

Look no further than TOAW3 or AT. Fits like a glove as we say.
Actually, anyone who needs more than those have way too much time on their hands.

Marcus

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

Look I don't know what rig or OS you're running but the best "simple" games with guts ever made were:

1. Civil War Generals 2 (with self-declaration of scenario end patch) - must be available somewhere.
2. The Ardennes Offensive 1 - was free for download somewhere, write to SSG.
3. Battles in Normandy - SSG/Matrix.
4. Squad Battles - HPS.
5. Panzer General 1.

If I could make a suggestion out of left field, I'd recommend the Age of Empires 3 franchise. It's a beautiful looking and playing thing with an immense change to player chores over AoE 1 and 2.

At the moment I'm using a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop with 2 GHz dual processor and 2 GB of RAM, running Windows XP Pro. Thanks for the suggestions, mostly 20th century unfortunately. I've heard of Civil War Generals -- pretty old now, I think. I seem to remember trying a demo of The Ardennes Offensive years ago. Interesting that you recommend Age of Empires #3 -- I tried the demo of #1 when it first came out and I wasn't keen, but if it's much improved maybe I should bear that in mind.

ORIGINAL: Jim_H

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
"The point I prove everyday is most of you that respond to me are a troll"
Oh look, all those other drivers are all driving on the wrong side of the road ...

Touche. 1-0 to Eddy [:D]

Here's an example of a Troll...not just a Troll...the KING of Trolls:

(quote from ravinhood#2)<"I thought it was suppose to be released Sept 2007 what happened Arjuna? "(quote from ravinhood #2)

Now why would he even post a reply in a forum of the game he calls a "kiddie clickfest"? Not just a post but another redundant remark which has absolutely no purpose[8|] other than to be annoying, inflammatory[>:]. Only ravintroll see's himself as the victim, the rest of us know who he really is...<insert adjective here>[:D].

JP you really owe it to yourself to try SC..the demo will do. First the WaW demo has a Battle of the Bulge scenario that gives you a feel for its operational capability and then has the strategic demo which was the original foundation for the game engine.

If you could find the SC1 demo, possibly you should try it first. Very simple with an elegant interface that can be played in a couple of hours without reading anything, pretty intuitive.

Finally you should know that this game has evolved over 5 years, with many adopted user ideas from the forum. It now(WaW) possess' a competent AI (they tell me), but I assure you the HtoH dynamics of PBEM are very fulfilling.

It is an easy game to play with a lot going on underneath the hood, the only micromanagement is in your head(contemplation) with a complicated Rocks, Paper, Scissors essence.

ORIGINAL: TheHellPatrol

ORIGINAL: Jim_H

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
"The point I prove everyday is most of you that respond to me are a troll"
Oh look, all those other drivers are all driving on the wrong side of the road ...

Touche. 1-0 to Eddy [:D]

Here's an example of a Troll...not just a Troll...the KING of Trolls:

(quote from ravinhood#2)<"I thought it was suppose to be released Sept 2007 what happened Arjuna? "(quote from ravinhood #2)

Now why would he even post a reply in a forum of the game he calls a "kiddie clickfest"? Not just a post but another redundant remark which has absolutely no purpose[8|] other than to be annoying, inflammatory[>:]. Only ravintroll see's himself as the victim, the rest of us know who he really is...<insert adjective here>[:D].

I guess you're going to like my reply then [:D]

m.asp?m=1651610&mpage=1&key=

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

ORIGINAL: Jim_H

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
"The point I prove everyday is most of you that respond to me are a troll"
Oh look, all those other drivers are all driving on the wrong side of the road ...

Touche. 1-0 to Eddy [:D]

And there goes Jim_H and Sterecke and JD proving my point today. I win you always lose.

@Sterecke notice who attacked who first? The OTHER guy, thus making him the troll not me. I responded to the topic and a question. He responded with a trolling remark.

Hey Erik you gonna let this continue? Cause I can really get nasty if you ain't gonna do anything about THEM.

You know... speaking of "choreless Grand Strategy," I just found out that the Gametap Gold service (which costs $10 monthly) allows you access to Panzer General II and the Panzer General spinoff game! Not to mention also having Age of Sail III, Space Empires IV and V, Gates of Troy, Laser Squad Nemesis, Armored Fist 3 and... nostalgia getting the best of me... The Ancient Art of War series (at Sea and in the Sky)! I tried Gametap out a while back and they had limited selection... now it looks like they are catering to a more expanded market than people nostalgic for their Segas and Nintendos. Heck, they even said that Dangerous Waters is coming soon! I am seriously thinking about subscribing with this number of classic strategy games (that I never got to play when I was younger).

That being said, you can't go wrong with Starships Unlimited. I love the game for some quick, "nuke'm till they glow" fun. Don't expect Imperium Galactica, GalCiv, or MoO, but more a fast and furious, ship heavy exploration game.

And can we not get this thread locked please, aside from an apparent side conversation, this thread has some very interesting reading. Why not start a new thread called "Why RH sucks/is a God" and take it there? [:'(]

SoM

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort


And can we not get this thread locked please, aside from an apparent side conversation, this thread has some very interesting reading. Why not start a new thread called "Why RH sucks/is a God" and take it there? [:'(]

SoM

RH wrote " I win you always lose. "


The outright winner is not conclusive. Can't a coin toss be done. Then we would know for sure. "Heads ,I win. Tails you loose"

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

You know... speaking of "choreless Grand Strategy," I just found out that the Gametap Gold service (which costs $10 monthly) allows you access to Panzer General II and the Panzer General spinoff game! Not to mention also having Age of Sail III, Space Empires IV and V, Gates of Troy, Laser Squad Nemesis, Armored Fist 3 and... nostalgia getting the best of me... The Ancient Art of War series (at Sea and in the Sky)! I tried Gametap out a while back and they had limited selection... now it looks like they are catering to a more expanded market than people nostalgic for their Segas and Nintendos. Heck, they even said that Dangerous Waters is coming soon! I am seriously thinking about subscribing with this number of classic strategy games (that I never got to play when I was younger).

That being said, you can't go wrong with Starships Unlimited. I love the game for some quick, "nuke'm till they glow" fun. Don't expect Imperium Galactica, GalCiv, or MoO, but more a fast and furious, ship heavy exploration game.

And can we not get this thread locked please, aside from an apparent side conversation, this thread has some very interesting reading. Why not start a new thread called "Why RH sucks/is a God" and take it there? [:'(]

SoM

Agree SOM you and "I" are the only sane ones here. The rest are ranting and trolling. Well the usual rest I should say. The newcomers are being very polite as well. FYI you newcomers just ignore people like Sterecke, JD and Jim_H and oh I guess Hell Patrol as well and one of the SARGES and you'll have a wonderful time of gaining TRUTHFUL information from the likes of ME and SOM and WODIN and oh Veldor and a few others. Those few I mentioned just like to troll. If you notice they follow ME to a thread more often than I go into one they have started.

Someone has to say it so ...

We want age of rifles .. we want Master of Magic .. we want Master of orion .. We want panzer General .. We want the grandest fleet&nbsp; .. we want Buzz Aldrins race into space .. We want Civil war generals .. We want Battle of britain .. [well some of us do }

&nbsp;In other words where are all the Wargame Lite OR if you like Pretzel Plus games.

boardwargaming has been moving to slicker more intuitive , swifter less time consuming games for a decade.

I look at the bombing the reich game and think I am not buying that again . Not because it won't be good , but it was a chore last time and looks even more detailed now.. WITP rides again.

Notagrog , i couldn't agree more. The drag and drop of ACW has left it unplayed on my Hd. The multiple multiple modifiers for each leader.. on and on it goes .. more depth, more features and a lot more time.

My hope lies in the lock n load conversions here.

And just for the exception that proves the rule all these klunky unfriendly interfaces and difficult&nbsp; implementaion methods seem to be being regulary addressed and helped along over at the WIF forum. Maybe this is the way to get a really decent game. { just takes 5+ years ! }

ORIGINAL: ezz

Someone has to say it so ...

We want age of rifles .. we want Master of Magic .. we want Master of orion .. We want panzer General .. We want the grandest fleet  .. we want Buzz Aldrins race into space .. We want Civil war generals .. We want Battle of britain .. [well some of us do }

In other words where are all the Wargame Lite OR if you like Pretzel Plus games.

boardwargaming has been moving to slicker more intuitive , swifter less time consuming games for a decade.

I look at the bombing the reich game and think I am not buying that again . Not because it won't be good , but it was a chore last time and looks even more detailed now.. WITP rides again.

Notagrog , i couldn't agree more. The drag and drop of ACW has left it unplayed on my Hd. The multiple multiple modifiers for each leader.. on and on it goes .. more depth, more features and a lot more time.

My hope lies in the lock n load conversions here.

And just for the exception that proves the rule all these klunky unfriendly interfaces and difficult  implementaion methods seem to be being regulary addressed and helped along over at the WIF forum. Maybe this is the way to get a really decent game. { just takes 5+ years ! }

Amen Ezz where are all the FUN 2-4 hours wargames anymore?? Like Operation Crusader someone was just talking about. Where's the you get 4 provinces and I get four provinces and everyone else who plays gets four provinces and last man standing wins? Remember that bot football game? Was it called Cyber sports? I forget but it was like a wargame played like a football game and you launched missles and stuff to wipe out the other guys while running interference for your bot quarterback. Damn wish I could remember that game. It was a blast to play back in my Amiga days.

There was another one I had where each side got 4 or 6 robots and I believe there were up to four playable sides. And you snuck around and tossed grenades and shot at each other kinda like X-Com only vs each other in a small playing area with a few fences or walls to hide behind and bushes I think. Another fun 1-2 hour game for the AMiga.

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
I'm sorry, but after a half hour, for a game like FoF, you have missed it. That's nowhere near enough to cut into it...though I do understand that the interface can put you off in that time. It will be sad if you do not visit it again, because the game is, by far, imo, the best game from Matrix.

Point taken! Maybe I'm hyper sensitive as designing software UI is part of my day job. There's a technique in software called "hallway testing" or similar. Basically you stop a random person in the hall, sit them down in front of your software to use it from scratch. It really shows up the clunks and flaws. So that first half hour is not invalid.

Also, virtually all games have a short-ish half life. The chance of me liking any game as much after 30 days as 30 mins is slim. eg I loved AGEODS game after half an hour, struggled with it after 2 weeks and gave up on it after 2 months!

Interested to hear Age of Empires 3 recommended. I generally can't get on with RTS's, but recently picked up AOE2 cheap and am having lots of guilty pleasure with it!

Back to original question. Why does a grand strategy game have to take 50+ hours to complete? To use the ACW as an example, I think AGEOD could have gone up a level of unit scale (divisions?), scrapped the lowest level, quartered the number of provinces and map size and the game would have been just as good - only playable twice as fast.

And now to speculate why so many here battle with unhelpful interfaces to get their gaming fix:
Imagine if AGEODS ACW (or FoF for that matter ) had the same engine but was 'skinned' so that it was total fantasy - infantry became orcs, cavalry were centaurs. Map the same but all state and town names changed so Washington was Helmsdeep etc. All Generals names changed to be suitably Tolkeinesque. Would those who like the current games actually still play it? The depth of strategy would be absolutely identical, but I'm guessing that a lot who love the current games would find the fantasy skin a total turn off and completely unplayable.

My (totally speculative) point being that for BIG historical strategy games, as long as the developers get a vast amount of historical names, references and events on display, the game engine itself is largely irrelevant.

Allright, let's knock off the side discussions, this is too good a thread...

"In other words where are all the Wargame Lite OR if you like Pretzel Plus games."

They're out there and we certainly have quite a few in our catalog, but you may not hear about them the most as we tend to have a fairly "grognard" crowd. We do try to get a few "beer and pretzels" releases in each year however as we also enjoy games that don't make us work hard from time to time.

Regards,

- Erik

I would like the fantasy skin from the FOF game. Hell yeah, I'd be on cloud nine for a FOF type Fantasy game in the Lord of the Rings style of play. There's just not any good Lord of the Rings games out there to play. I have one from the C=64 days "War in the Middle Earth" and it suks for combat play, but, the map is huge (and the paper map that came with it is like 48x36 or 48x30 it's huge looks just like the one in the movie) and getting from the Shire to Mt. Doom is perfect with all the battles inbetween and stuff, but, the combat engine is one of the worst I ever saw.
&nbsp;
Man I'd pay $60 for a good turn based Lord of the Rings type game. I really enjoy fantasy turn based games. But, there hasn't been a GREAT one since Master of Magic. Age of Wonders suks and HOMM is merely ok, it's not all that, but, II & III are pretty good. What I don't like in those types of Fantasy games is the LINEAR building sequences you always go thru. Build a town hall, then build a castle then build oh I forget, but, it was a linear sequence to good income by building in a certain order and if you didn't build in that order you fell behind and usually lost to other human players. I hate that crap. It's like reading the same book over and over with those same sequence&nbsp;build types of games. Even MOM has the linear build sequences, but, it does give you a bit more paths to take, but, you still gotta follow that gold pattern of building to keep up. Plus HOMM you always saw the goodies you were going to get, whereas in MOM you had to fight your way past the monsters and then you discovered what you were going to get after you beat them. MOM is still the best fantasy turn based game I've ever played. I played Fantasy General also and it just didn't compare.

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

Thanks, ravinhood. I specialize in strategy rather than tactics, but I have played battle games occasionally in the past.

Oh Erik mentioned "Carriers at War" yeah I'd recommend this one also as a quick 1-2 hour play type of game. If you like naval fighting games.

I'm hoping they can get "Europe Ablaze" as that was one of the other favorite games from SSG I enjoyed back in the day. It also was an easy 1-2 hour play. Quite easy to play, but, hard to master. I got stomped by the British airpower more times than once. hahah

The "Battlefront" game might be another that offers short playing times. I never got into the Battlefront series, but, I seem to recall them not taking very long when I played them years ago. Panzer something or other is the one I have. There's a Civil War series of these old SSG Battlefront type of games as well out there somewheres.

ORIGINAL: NotaGrog
Point taken! Maybe I'm hyper sensitive as designing software UI is part of my day job. There's a technique in software called "hallway testing" or similar. Basically you stop a random person in the hall, sit them down in front of your software to use it from scratch. It really shows up the clunks and flaws. So that first half hour is not invalid.

All your statements echo what I've said for the last half-decade here. Somehow there is this flawed thought out there that Wargamers are "different" from every other person. Maybe just different or maybe "better", maybe "smarter", maybe "more tolerant". But in the end sorry to tell you all we are no different than anyone else.

A bad UI is a bad UI. Wargames are not anymore complex than plenty of business applications or even other games like certain MMOs out there. Yet any of those other things are far more intuitive to use than the average wargame.

And now to speculate why so many here battle with unhelpful interfaces to get their gaming fix:
Imagine if AGEODS ACW (or FoF for that matter ) had the same engine but was 'skinned' so that it was total fantasy - infantry became orcs, cavalry were centaurs. Map the same but all state and town names changed so Washington was Helmsdeep etc. All Generals names changed to be suitably Tolkeinesque. Would those who like the current games actually still play it? The depth of strategy would be absolutely identical, but I'm guessing that a lot who love the current games would find the fantasy skin a total turn off and completely unplayable.

Yup cuz wargamers are "better than that". Fantasy would be too much of a "game" and we don't play games we play "historical simulations" that "recreate history". [:D]

I gave up long ago on this though. I think part of the confusion lies in a misrepresentation by forum posters. People who are put off by poor UIs and such just go away and move on to other things. Its therefore more prevelant to see the average online wargamers care more about arguing over which hex a city really should be in or what exactly the modifier for something should be than they care about anything of any actual design consequence.

Sad to me really when 2000 hours are spent researching biographies and backgrounds for leaders and units most players probably never even read and only 2 hours go into researching how to best layout all the interfaces and controls. Perhaps this partially lies in where a developers motivation for making the game comes from in the first place.

This also feeds into the "no demo" argument in my opinion. A properly designed UI would make the game easy and fun to pickup and play regardless of ultimate difficulty. (A possible poor but interesting example is most MMO's. Do you know how ungodly complicated Everquest II is??? Yet anyone can download and play the demo, have fun, get hooked, and buy it without needing to read so much as a single page of print). All the other layers are there once your ready for them.

I've zero patience for a poor UI. I think for many of us its because we've seen what a good UI is both in gaming and elsewhere. Maybe wargames are going to forever continue to only cater to those sheltered few who play nothing else and "don't know any better". The "Historical Simulations" types who wouldn't dare play a "game".

I do think that Matrix, Developers, or anyone listen to feedback and act upon it. The truth is though that most players know better how to articulate a complaint about ultra minor historical accuracy improvement than they would a suggestion for UI improvement etc. Thus I think its just the general "sense" that thats whats of more importance (That is Minor historical nitpicks rather than UI optimizations).

At this point I've given up on ever seeing that change. I love that the average wargame can't seem to get past lining up a hundred buttons in a row and calling it done. Let's try a little harder than that next time pretty please? [:D]