Matrix Games Forums

Do the historical scernarios in this game stack up decently enough, and are they historically accurate enough, to make the game a worthwhile purchase for an ultragrognard?

I have no interest whatsoever in the randomized scenario engine.

Screenshots look intriguing, but all the references to cities producing units smacks of an RTS.
I'm not interested in a "Blitzkrieg" style engine where new units pop up every thirty seconds (saddest excuse for a wargame I ever encountered).

Can anyone with experience with this engine give me a take on it?

First off it's not RTS. It's igo-ugo turn based.

The production is based in cities to represent factories, recruiting centers,training centers, etc. You have to plan out your army's needs and set the build orders. On your next turn you get what you asked for. You only have so many productions points at each city. Cities of different size have different production points. Also each city can only produce up to 4 different kinds of material at a time. This includes supplies and Political Points, kind of a currency used mostly for research.

The scenarios that come with the game are not bad at representing the battles they are about. But they are not "Ultra Grognard" level. They were created with a "standard" set of units to show different battles without changing the rules too much for first time users.

There are a number of scenarios underway by users that will, I'm sure, get closer to actual OOB's and such. The editor is very powerful and once we all fully understand it, there will be much rule/unit changing going on to bring it closer to games like AH's Third Reich or The Longest day or GDW's Europa series games.... but I don't know if you can do it exactly.... yet...

Hope that helps.

That helps a lot.

Thanks

Interesting that the three board games you mention are some of my all time favorites!

Yeah.... I've been waiting a long time for some way to make these into computer games....

Now I just need time from real life to play..... can't wait for retirement....[8D]

Hey Hans,

It's not an "ultra-grognard" game. But I think it does model the overall strategic situation well. For example take a look at some of the Russian Front AAR's - pretty darned realistic in my opinion at the strategic level and fairly realistic even at the tactical, grand tactical, and operational levels. It's also got a flexible editor and a bunch of historical scenarios - I've never even played a random scenario myself - I'm only interested in pre-built historical scenarios.

JJ

Hans,

You may be pleasantly surprised once you give it a try. I know a lot of "ultra-grognards" that ended up having a lot of fun with not only the historical but also the random and fictional scenarios.

Regards,

- Erik

I second Erik !
I'm amongst the usual "grogs", at first I laughed at the game un-historicity. Most of the "historical" scenarios are quite far off in the details, they have no decent OOB, usually unhistorical production rates, research, maps have no set scale, naval and air movement rates are totally off, and so on ! But but but,... the game is still very interesting and fun ! And more than that, even with their gross simplifications, the scenarios manage to capture the real challenges of the depicted situation, be it Ardennes'44 or the whole Russian Front ! That's the real beauty of this game [;)]

Additionnally, nothing prevents players from doing real historical scenarios, with a modded unit database. The only real difficulty imho being to set a proper scale (time/space) and units sizes - in the game everything comes up "undescript".

Lastly, I was also rather reluctant about the interest of random games, but when you try it you love it  ![:D]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Most of the "historical" scenarios are quite far off in the details, they have no decent OOB, usually unhistorical production rates, research, maps have no set scale, naval and air movement rates are totally off, and so on !

Well Guys,

As much as I appreciate your efforts to convince me that I'm going to enjoy it, the quote above is enough for me to decide to pass.

To me, it's the details that matter most. I can't have "flavor" without the details as they are what create "flavor" for me more than anything else.

I absolutely hate generic countermixes. When I'm taking Kharkov in 1942 with Papa Hausser leading his SS corps I MUST have the three proper SS divisions under command with the GD on my flank and not some generic "armored" units.

It just doesn't sound like the game for me.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Most of the "historical" scenarios are quite far off in the details, they have no decent OOB, usually unhistorical production rates, research, maps have no set scale, naval and air movement rates are totally off, and so on !

Well Guys,

As much as I appreciate your efforts to convince me that I'm going to enjoy it, the quote above is enough for me to decide to pass.

To me, it's the details that matter most. I can't have "flavor" without the details as they are what create "flavor" for me more than anything else.

I absolutely hate generic countermixes. When I'm taking Kharkov in 1942 with Papa Hausser leading his SS corps I MUST have the three proper SS divisions under command with the GD on my flank and not some generic "armored" units.

It just doesn't sound like the game for me.

I'm not going to try and convince you to take a plunge - I know everyone has their own reasons for a gmae that just grabs them. I also like "historical" flavor with the attendant details. (although one of my favorite games was AH -3R), but having said that. I dont entirely agree with PdiFalco, I'm playing one random scen. Started it just to learn how to play, and it's quick and fun - definitely easy to pick up, with quick turns.

But I'm also playing the North Africa Scen. that ships with the game, In this scen. the production side of the game has been suspended, and units come on either as historical units, the 15th Panzer Division, the 90th Light Division have just disembarked to join the 21st Panzer Div, the 5th Light Division, along with the Ariete, Sovronna, Italian divisions.

the scenario design (Vic in this case) provides replacements in HQ units, to feed to the Divisions.

It puts me in mind of a better version of the very first computerized wargme I owned, Knights of the Desert. I'm enjoying it quite a lot.

I have now doubt that as we see more user created scenarios, we'll see more of "historically" constrained scenarios.

Not trying to influence you, but encouraging to to keep on eye on this forum as well as the community site. I'm sure there will soon be scenarios you that you will be interested in seeing.

Rick

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco
Most of the "historical" scenarios are quite far off in the details, they have no decent OOB, usually unhistorical production rates, research, maps have no set scale, naval and air movement rates are totally off, and so on !

Well Guys,

As much as I appreciate your efforts to convince me that I'm going to enjoy it, the quote above is enough for me to decide to pass.

Yes, it's better to get honest, helpful replies to your question rather than the common "it rokks - buy now" reply! I agree with PDiFolco's comments, so perhaps the lack of historical accuracy would disappoint you. However, I was mainly interested in historical scenarios too, yet have found the random ones to be totally addictive! Not expected at all.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
I absolutely hate generic countermixes. When I'm taking Kharkov in 1942 with Papa Hausser leading his SS corps I MUST have the three proper SS divisions under command with the GD on my flank and not some generic "armored" units.

Although the current scenarios could be described as 'sketches' of their historical counterparts, the editor and underlying systems are *very* versatile. It's probably not impossible to create a scenario with the detail you describe. It'll be interesting to see what the community comes up with.

Overall, I can see the attraction of historical accuracy. However, AT appears to be in an under represented niche somewhere between abstract game and historical simulation. I mean it's much more genuinely 'strategic' than say, the Total War series, yet avoids going off to where you need to have as much historical knowledge as the original general did just to play the game! (and as I'm notagrog, this is OK with me)

After writing a some of the scenarios, I really think that historical accuracy is possible by 2 means:
 
- Making the scale of the scenario limited in size and time (e.g., invasion of Poland).
- Massively constraining a player's freedom of action.  If you want a scenario that covers Europe starting from 1939 and usually ends with the Soviets marching into Berlin in May of 1945, the players almost have to be reading from a script.   I think larger scale scenarios have to be a bit more loose with history to maximize playability.  
 
The real challenge in designing these scenarios is providing players with the same level of uncertainty that commanders and politicians felt at the time.  The difficultly is that we know how things turned out.  How does a game properly simulate US production during the WWII yet ever get Germany or Japan to do the things that bring that production into the war?  If you can add a sufficient historical variability, I think you better simulate the actual uncertainty that was felt at the time.  In the end, I think scenarios have a choice between either simulating what actually happened or simulating the difficult choices made by those with a uncertain view of the future. 

Hi all,

The thing with the AT engine is that in one radical way it is very different from all other wargame engines. It is a non unit-centered game engine. This makes it impossible to ensure the continued existence of units like "the 2nd ss pz div" throughout a game. (but a player can if he wants too of course)

The thing in which the engine shines in my opinion is the fact that it recreates pretty good the realities of ww2 era warfare. So even if the OOBs might not be that excellent, the actual way the scenario plays out, the mechanics and the effects of the different types of weapons on eachother is very historical in my opinion.

I think myself its much more important to be able to do blitz style operations, defensive lines, defense in depth, counter attacks and artillery preperations properly then to have the units and stuff named correctly. Especially since the naming does not have that much effect, since i can easily split the unit in parts or transfer their contents to other units. (and the AI certainly will)

Kind regards,
Vic

There two different things here: - existing scenarios and potential for creating historical scenarios.
Existing scenario, at least for Russia 1941 is far off mark in all aspects - OOB, tech, production, force placement.  The problem of existing scenario - there was not enough efforts put into it, it's mote like afterthought addition to game engine. It's defenitely possible to create far better historical scenario with editor, without losing any fun factor. The interesting thing is, that even this lacking scenario capture the spirit of Barbarossa very well. It highlight the most important aspect of early Barbarossa - it was fluid battle of strikes and counterstrikes, with both sides cutting or tying to cut enemy supply/communication lines all the time.

I appreciate the in depth replies without anyone resorting to denegration of anyone else's preferences and without the "buy it dude, it roxxers" style of response.

It's rather refreshing in a public forum to manage to stimulate intelligent discussion.

My statement that I abhor generic countermixes was perhaps stronger than necessary and doesn't mean I haven't played and enjoyed games that have them. I was, after all a playtester of Advanced Third Reich. It's difficult to avoid having generic countermixes in grad strategic simulations.

It's once things get to operational level or below that leaving out historical accuracy and historical naming starts to detract heavily from the game's overall appeal, at least for me.

A fair number of you seem to be enjoying the engine itself inspte of the historical inaccuracies and that alone says a lot.

I'm still riding the fence and will continue to look in here to help me decide.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm like you I love historical scenario's over random generic. But with this game it plays so well it feels like a wargame should. Its not like other WWII games were there is plenty of detail and no game and the earths natural laws get suspended each turn.
It gets you engrossed in the decision making process, Should I move reserves here? Should I send I unit there. Can I pull a unit out of the line to regroup?
Sure I would have loved more historical scenarios and units to be actual regiments,companies etc but once you start playing your captivated.

Oh, and "Just buy it Dude it ROKKS!!!!"[:'(]

ORIGINAL: Smirfy


I'm like you I love historical scenario's over random generic. But with this game it plays so well it feels like a wargame should. Its not like other WWII games were there is plenty of detail and no game and the earths natural laws get suspended each turn.
It gets you engrossed in the decision making process, Should I move reserves here? Should I send I unit there. Can I pull a unit out of the line to regroup?
Sure I would have loved more historical scenarios and units to be actual regiments,companies etc but once you start playing your captivated.

This is right on the money...the decision making process in this game (and its predecessor, People's Tactics) is absolutely engrossing, PBEM games are a real blast. I believe once scenarios start coming out with more accurate OOB's, interesting "events" that enhance historical gameply, even agreed upon rules for unit sizes, etc., this game will get even better. The best part about it is its flexibility, as has been said before.

Hans,

Take a look at the AAR section for PBEM - Fall Grun. Historical OOB, setting, etc. Really cool!

Thanks I am and have already started asking stupid questions. [:D]

Hans,

Sounds like you and I have similar concerns. Having said that I will give you the advice I would have expected had our roles been reversed and you had bought the game whereas I was asking this question.

Bottom line:

The lack of historical unit sizes/designations will drive you batty!!! You probably won't play some of the scenarios just because of it----I don't. However, the genius of this thing is the editor. So, if you are into scenario design, this game is an absolutely must have. If not, I would wait and see what the community puts together. Having said this, it is almost too bad the unit size/name issues were not addressed earlier for the grognards because the way the game plays it really quite fun.