Matrix Games Forums

To anyone who has both and played both, what are the differences between ANW and HCE?

ANW has optional logistics, which means that you won't have an endless supply of missiles/bombs to launch from your aircraft or ships. ANW also has a multiplayer mode, which HCE does not. The interface for ANW and HCE are also different, HCE has windows type UI with a colour map, while ANW resembles CIC or radar type interface. I beleive ANW is based around the Harpoon 4 paper rules by Bond and Carlson, more so than HCE. Finally ANW also shares some commonality with the Harpoon Military edition, which is obviously for military professionals, but has seen some new features find their way into ANW, after being added to the Harpoon Military edition, such as boarding actions, with reportedly more to come in the future.

I bought ANW first and played until HCE came out. The interface seemed clumsy to me. And there was a problem with the mouse, it didn't work right. There was some sort of fix that worked sometimes. Also, HCE is more task force and ANW is more smaller unit oriented. And the graphics in ANW really suck. Back then I suggested simple graphics like all one color instead of those crosses but it looks like that never happened.

Most important addition for me is that ANW has (an option for) limited ordinance for aircraft.
It also has useful tools like user defined no-go zones and the ships will avoid land even when your path plots through it.

mmm. Thx - doesn't sound like ANW would bring anything important to my experience - especially as I haven't played HCE in quite some time anyway. I'll save my money this time round.