Matrix Games Forums

Downloaded the demo and am giving it a whirl.....love the small scale stuff, probably going to have to buy the damn game[:D] seems to run fine on my laptop.The questions i have are
1. in relation to the graphics what does the setting bloom do?
2. looked in the manual and can't find any explanation for the minus sign button on the game screen, it says "stall" when i hover over it, it practical terms what does that do?

thx for any help, and there may be more questions to follow.

1 no idea

2 I think is only relative to Classic AP mode where you don't lose a turn for clicking pass.

Graphics bloom adds an effect that is normally used in 3d first person games to enhance sunlight effects and make it appear more natual in general lighting. Unfortunately in this game it also 'enhances' the counter chits (when used) and doesn't make any improvements imho.

As junk has mentioned above, Stall is when using Classic AP - allows you to pass your turn at the cost of an AP without the risk of the round ending should your opponent then declare a pass.

You may be interested in accessing the online boardgame rules for more information, although not everything from the rulebook has been incorporated into the computer game : http://academy-games.com/images/stories ... 2nd_Ed.zip

cheers

so i purchased the game....damn i'm weak[:'(]

do i have to uninstall the demo before installing the game or just install over it?

Weak is good!

Welcome to the game. Normally Matrix demos install to a different folder so you should be able to just run the installer.

Thx for the reply, i went ahead and uninstalled it, downloading the update now from gamershell. Going thru the game updater would of taken 95 minutes, 45 minutes thru gamershell....big update.

I've only played the demo and haven't ever played the boardgame. I read the threads about the AP system. I was curious why people prefer the classic system. If i understand correctly in the classic system you have to use all a units ap's in one shot, once you switch you cant go back to that unit to do anything i guess unless you have a card or convert caps to ap's, is that right?

Seems like if i want to move a unit to cover to maybe cover an advance of other units, if the advancing units uncover an enemy i'd like to switch back and fire at that enemy unit. With the classic system i wouldn't be able to do that unless i used a card or convert caps or is that unit done no matter what and you can't activate again with a card or otherwise. Am i missing something, why is the classic system better i guess is my question.

I'm not a board gamer and play with Persistent AP and 3D units. Classic doesn't appeal to me at all.

Hi budd and welcome to a great game, both the PC and board game varieties. It's my personal favorite tactical wargame system so I couldn't recommend it more.

Classic AP mode versus Persistent AP mode is an interesting question. I know in the BoardGameGeek forum where they cover the board game (obviously), people are biased towards the Classic AP system as one would expect. Both have merits and I've played with both systems extensively. I feel at the end of the day , Classic AP is a more tactical system and rewards long term planning. You have to be thinking ahead and what you want to accomplish and then execute that plan. When something unforeseen happens, you have to decide the best way to deal with it and there are many, many options (most with pros and cons). With Persistent AP mode, you really don't have to deal with this since it has absolute flexibility and there is rarely if any, repercussions to switching on and off units.

For example if you have a LMG34 as the Active unit and a Rifle squad covering its flank that is "Fresh" (meaning hasn't activated yet) and your opponent unexpectedly launches a flank attack on the LMG34, in Persistent Mode you would simply activate the Rifle hopefully kill the attacker, and then go back to activating the LMG34.

In Classic AP mode you would have to make some choices. You could:
1. Mark the Active LMG34 unit spent losing its remaining APs and Activate the Rifle squad with it gaining its full APs to use.

2. Keep the LMG34 active and decide to use an Opportunity Action. This would allow you to perform one action with the Rifle squad and then it would be marked spent while the LMG34 was still the Active unit. It's inefficient but represents the difficulties of command and getting a unit to change tasks on a fly.

3. Keep the LMG34 active by using a Command (CAP)Action. This means spending only CAPS to make the Rifle fire while preserving the LMG34 as the Active unit and also the "Fresh" state of the Rifle unit. Of course you need CAPs do do that and there is never enough around to do everything you want.

4. Keep the LMG34 active but doing a Card Action which again allows the Rifle to act without changing either the LMG34 or its status. A card could also negatively affect the enemy unit, something like "Marked as Used."

As you can see, there are many more choices and combinations of what can be done using the Classic AP mode over the Persistent AP mode. I do know the PC allows the Persistent Mode whereas the board game designer didn't think it would work in a board game setting.

It does come down to personal preference so in that way, there is no wrong choice. However the two people I know who came to this game by way of the PC game and Persistent AP mode who I taught Classic AP mode to, prefer it and have switched.

Finally here's a good explanation of how Classic AP mode works, straight from the board game rules (latest version):

thanks for the reply,

I think i was misunderstanding something.So one turn consists of doing one thing with any of your units then the enemy gets to do one thing with one of his units and it goes back and forth until the round ends.As long as a unit has Ap's i can do more with it in future turns in the same round. That about right?

Correct. A round (usually 5 in a game; they are the clocks top center of the GUI) consists of all the Actions of each player. Then when each player passes consecutively, the round ends. Those actions are broken down to represent one thing a player does with a active unit at a time. Here's an excellent example (imo) of the flow of a Round using Classic APs:

AAAAAAA thanks....that does sound better, for sure more difficult command choices to make. Thanks for taking the time. I believe i'm going to have to go download the board game rules and give them a read.