Matrix Games Forums

Here are some overall questions I have:

1) This is going to be a game focusing on a modified version of the tactical battle system of Forge of Freedom, correct?

2)What will be the replayability of this game?

3)How will this game compare to the HPS Campaign Civil War games? I love the HPS Civil War games, but this "Brother against brother" series sounds like a direct contender against the HPS games. I'm opened mined and would love to see a new system.

4)How many titles are planned for the Series? Now, this is a big point for me, and is one thing I don't like about HPS. I don't want to pay for 10 full-priced games just so I can get the entire civil war.

5)Are other periods planned? By this I mean Napoleon, Renaissance, Ancients, Medieval, and possibly, maybe even World War I. PLEASE I REPEAT PLEASE DON'T GO TO WWII.

WW1 is the one I asked for....though a few games are on the way so it's looking good on that front....moght mean a splurge of new WW1 games...I hope this engine is one of them.

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

Here are some overall questions I have:

1) This is going to be a game focusing on a modified version of the tactical battle system of Forge of Freedom, correct?

2)What will be the replayability of this game?

3)How will this game compare to the HPS Campaign Civil War games? I love the HPS Civil War games, but this "Brother against brother" series sounds like a direct contender against the HPS games. I'm opened mined and would love to see a new system.

4)How many titles are planned for the Series? Now, this is a big point for me, and is one thing I don't like about HPS. I don't want to pay for 10 full-priced games just so I can get the entire civil war.

5)Are other periods planned? By this I mean Napoleon, Renaissance, Ancients, Medieval, and possibly, maybe even World War I. PLEASE I REPEAT PLEASE DON'T GO TO WWII.

1) Yes. Significantly modified, though, I should emphasize.
2) First, each battle will have multiple scenarios upon release, and we'll add a few more by patch. So there's that. Each scenario should be quite replayable, though. We're using a bit of scripting, but in a very open-ended way: it's mainly a way of getting units to go to roughly the right area of the battlefield, though in a few cases we're using it to reproduce actual tactics from those battles (e.g., Hancock's flanking march at Williamsburg). So you will not find the AI incredibly scripted and predictable, especially since the scripting is overriden by circumstances in the battle.
3) I make it a rule never to compare a WCS game with another developer's game, so I'll only confirm that BAB is intended to appeal to the same market.
4) If the BAB series is popular then we'll make more releases, but that will mean we've covered more battles, which is presumably a good thing. One thing we will not do is stretch these releases thin, by having fewer battles per release as a way of drawing things out. So right now we can do the whole war in six releases and hit all of the major battles, but if we could do eight or nine we'd be able to get in a good number of the lesser engagements: it's the difference, say, between including The Wilderness in a "Last Battles of the Civil War" release or having it in a release entirely dedicated to the Overland Campaign. (The difference really comes in the final two years of the war. We've already planned on covering 1861-1862 in four releases, through Fredericksburg in the East and Murfreesboro in the West, but there are several ways to handle 1863-1865, which require at least two releases.)
5) Our programmer/lead developer, Eric Babe, has seen a lot of possibilities for this engine, but nothing is planned so far. And we do have our hands full just with BAB.

ORIGINAL: wodin

WW1 is the one I asked for....though a few games are on the way so it's looking good on that front....moght mean a splurge of new WW1 games...I hope this engine is one of them.

World War I??? Be like a game of firing squads ... each side with a firing squad stands up and shoot at one another. Best it was a wego system. [>:]

hehe makes me laugh....lots of good books out there you know...

ORIGINAL: wodin

hehe makes me laugh....lots of good books out there you know...

The only books' I have read on the subject covered the air war and naval (Jutland). Perhaps when we Yank's started fighting and using maneuver tactic's, to bad we left all our BAR's at home, that might be of interest. But the western from was massive seige warfare. Nothing of interest there. I did like the flick "My Boy Jack" with the Harry Potter actor, he did and excellant job.

ORIGINAL: wodin

WW1 is the one I asked for....though a few games are on the way so it's looking good on that front....moght mean a splurge of new WW1 games...I hope this engine is one of them.

I’ve been asking for N American Colonial wars since COG,

oh well............ maybe next time [&:]

I'm with you on the NA Colonial Wars WCS game.  I'd also like a Medieval game, but here's to dreaming.

I’ve been asking for N American Colonial wars since COG,

It seems those are getting more bad flack now, than American civil war games get for apparently promoting slavery.  Not that the wargamers are thinking that.

Another Question:
Will there be widescreen support? No Widescreen = No sale. 1024 by 768 fixed on a 27in Screen = Not happening.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by the fact that other developers - even others on this very forum - are finally stepping up to the plate and adding widescreen support. WitP:AE now has widescreen support, and even the SP Camo guys behind WinSPMBT has added Widescreen support(in a Beta, officailly coming in next patch) so if these guys can do it, I know for you can.

I wouldn't mind seeing a game covering the age of Malbourough or the English Civil war.

A decent age of horse and muskets system might be able to stretch that far.

Yes, there's widescreen. (I guess you posted the screenshot I posted a few months back showing this. Well worth looking for...)

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

Another Question:
Will there be widescreen support? No Widescreen = No sale. 1024 by 768 fixed on a 27in Screen = Not happening.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by the fact that other developers - even others on this very forum - are finally stepping up to the plate and adding widescreen support. WitP:AE now has widescreen support, and even the SP Camo guys behind WinSPMBT has added Widescreen support(in a Beta, officailly coming in next patch) so if these guys can do it, I know for you can.

Just jumping in here to ask another question...
 
Is this game going to have a campaign mode something like how it worked in Civil War Generals 2?

I haven't played that game, but if I correctly understand the question, then no. Each scenario will be unrelated to the others.

One day we might do a campaign-level game, perhaps even reusing some of the battlefields, but this is enough work just getting individual battles to work right.

I haven't played that game...

WHAT!??


Anyhow, speaking of CWG II, I just replayed part of the first campaign last night for some nostalgia. Can't get over how great a game it was at the time, though I feel a bit burned that I just upgraded (at huge cost) my 3" Horse Artillery to rifled Napoleon cannons. Only to find out that the next scenario in the campaign didn't use any of my confederate artillery units at all.

So no, it wasn't perfect, but it sure was on the right track. A lot of complexity in that game, but very easy for even beginners to grasp at the start.

Yeah, I know. I don't have an especially good defense, either.

Well I would highly recommend giving it a try. There is still a pretty big fanbase for a game so old. And if you do give it a go you will see that the campaign system is very abstracted. You basically are playing the historical battles but with slightly different setups based on what happened in the last battle. So it may be easier than you think to add some type of campaign system to this game. Like a previous poster said, it wasn't perfect but it added a lot to the enjoyment. You felt as though you had some incentive to try to run down routing enemy units, or keep yours out of harm's way as you always had the next battle to think about.

Well, for this first release we definitely wouldn't do it, as the battles are all from different campaigns -- 1st Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Mill Springs, Williamsburg -- but we've thought of doing a "lite" version of that for the "Lee Takes Command" release, for which we plan to include Gaines' Mill and Glendale+Malvern Hill, and possibly Mechanicsville. But of course, the only reason Glendale+Malvern Hill happened after Gaines' Mill was that McClellan was retreating, so it would make no sense for the Union to win the first battle and then be fighting 10 miles or so to the rear.

Why did you move away from your great campaign games into individual tactical battles? Everytime Matrixgames gets a good developer (Koios) and youse guys something happens and they go and fark them up. I miss Koios productions and I already miss that you're not making anymore campaign games like Forge or Crown. I was hoping you would move into Medieval territory or even ancients.
 
You'll be on this development for years won't you? Though I bought your other games Forge and Crown I just have no interest in individual battles anymore. There's little to no real replayability, no randomness and most of them because the AI is so pitiful no historical reality.

We haven't moved away from the FOF/COG type of games, but rather are working on multiple projects. This BAB series is intended to last for a few years, but we'll be releasing other games, too. And since there's a definite demand out there for Civil War battles it does make sense to do this.

So, stay tuned to hear about those other games...