Matrix Games Forums

First an observation. Don't push to hard for "historical". The Allies always win if it is "historical".
A lot of bad decisions were made for both sides. You don't want these forced on you.

I love the game. It has the best balance between Strategic and Tactical play I have seen so far. It come as close as I have seen to reproducing the simulation of WW II in Europe since the board games (War in the East, War in the West). Computer games always have the problem of tweaking the game without breaking something else and the difficulty of doing it versus just making up a house rule.

I am glad to hear it's sales are doing well. Niche games sometime don't get enough following to keep the developer working on it. As happened with Brother Against Brother which I thought was the best tactical rendering of Civil War put out. I stopped developing my own game on the Civil war when it released because I though they had nailed it. But interface was to "new" for most CW gamers. So back to writing my own.[:)]

WarPlan is a wargame based on history but not a historical simulation. Some elements might not be historically accurate but it does make the game more fun. You can't replicate history and have fun. And if you did the Allies would win easily.

Something I read a while ago that was addressed about firebombing German cities. Their power infrastructure got hit so hard that Speer said if they leveled one more city their industry would collapse due to lack of power stations.

You can try to make some sort of total realism mod, but if it is fun to play I don't know. I prefer fun over total realism, as long as it is not total science fiction.

You want realistic outcomes to your decisions so there are alternate ways to victory if the opponent doesn't make the right decisions in reaction to yours. But you don't want any "if you do this, that,..." and you will always win no matter what your opponent does. This takes a lot of playing time and trial and error.

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa
You can't replicate history and have fun. And if you did the Allies would win easily.

Sure you can. Allies are expected to win, eventually. The question is whether Axis can exceed historical gains by 1943 or can delay ultimate defeat past May 1945. It's all about establishing realistic, historical victory conditions for both players to shoot for. AH's The Russian Campaign, Third Reich, and other games did this. It works. At least on paper for boardgames. The trick is to code such victory conditions into a PC wargame. For fun, and replayability.

Well it is that way. Like generally it is hard to do an all out Barbarossa in WarPlan and beat another equally skilled player. You might cripple the USSR.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

Sure you can. Allies are expected to win, eventually. The question is whether Axis can exceed historical gains by 1943 or can delay ultimate defeat past May 1945. It's all about establishing realistic, historical victory conditions for both players to shoot for. AH's The Russian Campaign, Third Reich, and other games did this. It works. At least on paper for boardgames. The trick is to code such victory conditions into a PC wargame. For fun, and replayability.

+1

The reason the game seems buggy is the fact that Alvaro stays on top of them, acknowledges them, discusses them and fixes them. Other developers tend to ignore them for long periods of time and then come out with a massive patch.

Alvaro patches for the smallest bug and lets the player download those bug squashes almost overnight via his own posts. You don't have to wait for Matrix to go through its process which can take months. How many patches has WarPlan had since the last one from Matrix? That's the reason the game seems so buggy.

Have you seen the patch Readmes of some of the most popular games? There are sometimes over 100 bugs addressed in that one patch.

There is a very popular game system out there that gamers have complained about one of its major subsystems for years and is incredibly Ahistorical. Mods have been created to rectify this gigantic bug and still it has not been officially addressed.

Yet it is still one of the most popular around.

Example of an unaddressed bug is John Tillers Civil War system. I loved those games and have bought dozens. I joined a group that put on tournaments and signed up for one. My very first game my opponent did things with his cavalry that was totally ridiculous historically. In one instance he "surrounded" a 1000 man class A unit with 3 100 class D cavalry units and the game system dictated that the large unit was surrounded and surrendered!

I no longer play Tiller Civil War games.

You also have to realize just how much is going on under the hood in WarPlan. Features like, the AI automatically reinforces your units or you can do it yourself. That is so cool!

The AI intercepts enemy task forces! This is a turn based game, yet Alvaro has solved one of the most Ahistorical challenges of an I GO YOU GO game system. Even when it's not your turn you can intercept, at sea, an invasion force! That's revolutionary.

You can breakup large units into smaller ones and then recombine them. That's amazing!

I'm sorry, but some players seem to be clueless as to how revolutionary this game is and I am so glad to hear that sales are higher than expected. This is as it should be.

Well done Alvaro! [&o]

Now ... about the Editor... [:'(]

Agreed

Made my day guys.

ORIGINAL: Hairog

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I'm sorry, but some players seem to be clueless as to how revolutionary this game is and I am so glad to hear that sales are higher than expected. This is as it should be.

Well done Alvaro! [&o]

+1

Btw thank the beta testers get a lot of credit for the interception routine. They asked for it and helped me develop it

ORIGINAL: Hairog
The AI intercepts enemy task forces! This is a turn based game, yet Alvaro has solved one of the most Ahistorical challenges of an I GO YOU GO game system. Even when it's not your turn you can intercept, at sea, an invasion force! That's revolutionary.
You can breakup large units into smaller ones and then recombine them. That's amazing!

I would not say revolutionary, since older PC DOS games like Third Reich PC did manage to implement unit stacking/unstacking and naval interceptions based on hex range. If anything, the question is why Windows-based games like Panzer General and beyond got away from these basics and settled for the simplicity of single unit move/attack. It works OK and balances out in the long run, and the Strategic Command series has been very enjoyable, but at the end of the day why don't all PC wargames have unit stacking and interceptions? Schwerpunkt games does this, and Empires in Arms does this, and many others. Al's decision to make naval interceptions more dependent on coastal areas is revolutionary, and something I may also consider for Empires in Arms for Napoleonic naval movements. But yes, well done Alvaro!

ORIGINAL: AndrewKurtz

ORIGINAL: Hairog

...

I'm sorry, but some players seem to be clueless as to how revolutionary this game is and I am so glad to hear that sales are higher than expected. This is as it should be.

Well done Alvaro! [&o]

+1

+1

Thanks.

The coding required for stacking, interception, and naval movement is more complex. When you move and attack into an empty spaces the decision tree isn't that large. Once you add stacking it exponentially grows in CPU processing and coding. I've had to come up some creative ways to reduce the # of calculations for the A.I. and how to handle supply, convoys, different sea zones, etc. But I wanted to do it.

How about the handling of convoys and escorts? I hate spending all that time in other games chasing after submarines. Convoys are still vitally important yet not busy work. You have to build escorts and freighters because both are lost in the dozens and you have to allocate them to the different theaters and that is enough for me. Just enough to do so that you realize how important the battle for the Atlantic was yet it doesn't take up excessive time.

Headquarters - I hate having to match up units with their HQs. To me it's busy work that my staff would take care of. Yet you want to make sure the right commander is leading the attack. Once again it's an important element that is handled well IMHO. Just enough work to again realize it needs some attention but not that time consuming.

Multiple attacks from the same unit, looks like a good model for simulating Blitzkrieg and the Soviet Deep Battle to me.

It's pretty easy to declare war. Never did understand games that you have to have enough points to declare war. You really think that Hitler patiently waited until the time was right to declare war? Perfect example is his ridiculous move of declaring war on the US. Worst timing in the world, but he took no chit and did it.

Now, about that editor....[:'(][:'(]

I slowly update the editor.

I have to give you some grief.

Still enjoying the game. Small typo I have just noticed playing with 1.00.05. There is a "i" character missing for the city of Zhitomir in Ukraine. Zhitomr in the game.
Putting it here instead of opening a new thread for this.

thanks got it.