Games advice

[Phoenix100]

Was thinking of branching out into an East front war game, whilst waiting for the CO Chir Front to open up.....

Anybody in here play either WITE or Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets and care to give me an opinion about them. I want historically accurate and I don't like having to click on every single unit every single turn.

Any help appreciated. .

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Was thinking of branching out into an East front war game, whilst waiting for the CO Chir Front to open up.....

Anybody in here play either WITE or Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets and care to give me an opinion about them. I want historically accurate and I don't like having to click on every single unit every single turn.

Any help appreciated. .

I have both. ( as well as CO-BFTB). And both are well done. You can play both without learning all of the ins and outs, but if you care to dig into the manuals, there is a fair bit of things going on in both games.

I'd suggest WITE is broader in scope than Disaster in the Donets.

I think I may have played Disaster in the Donets a bit more, but then I've been a fan of SSG games since their first release in the 90's(?). The interface on Kharkov takes a little to get used to, but once you have it down it's fairly easy to use. If you've played either of the Battles series BiN or BiI the interface will be easy to get used to.

Rick

[Phoenix100]

Thanks Rick. Is there either - or any other game - that you would say has less micromanaging? Where - as in CO - you give orders to higher level units and don't need to give orders to every single piece on the board, as it were, because there's some manner of friendly AI that executes your higher level orders for the subordinate units?

[wodin]

Phoenix..sadly no mate. One reason why I'm desperate for CO East front;).

Decisive Campaigns Case Blue has been a game I really enjoy. Love the immersion which is rare in games at a high scale..well for em anyway.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks, Jason. Hadn't looked at that one. Looks interesting if only because it covers the same ground as some of the GTOS battles, and I've been dipping into that too. It's not got the hefty price tag that WITE has, either. But are you saying that even that one - DCCB - has no subordinate orders AI, that you have to instruct every single unit, every turn?

[wodin]

Yep every unit..there is really only Command Ops that uses this type of system. One reason it's ground breaking and a standout engine.

[navwarcol]

I agree with Wodin. I have both of those games, love them both, but you do end up with micromanaging your forces. My absolute favorite part of CO is a workable AI that can reasonably follow orders. I cannot wait to see it at work on the eastern front.

[Alchenar]

The guy specifically says he doesn't like clicking on every unit every turn, and you go and recommend WitE?

I'd recommend Decisive Campaigns:Case Blue. You are controlling everything (can't get around that for reasons Wodin gave) but it's on a manageable and accessible scale the units you'll actually move are much less than the units you can potentially move per turn, if you get my drift.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks guys. Helpful.

Well, I too wish the CO EF game wasn't so far away (2 years is my guess.....mischievously..). I have to admit that these hex based games don't look very attractive after CO.

With WITE is it the case that you HAVE to play the whole campaign - there's no shorter, manageable scenarios?

Which is the most historically accurate, do you think?

[budd]

When i read the OP saying didn't want to move a bunch of units every turn.....i was at a loss. DCCB is a real good game and the card system is interesting but i only play the smaller scenarios just for the reason i'm getting away from moving hundreds of counters every turn and DCCB doesn't have alot of small or medium scenarios. Too bad you not looking at other decades because i would say Flashpoint is a must have and you don't have to order every unit every turn. I know it's a modern game but im having a blast playing it. It's my first modern game, me being a WW2 guy. The AI is good and the sceanarios dont play out the same the second time through. Except for the WW2 east front thing it's sounds like this would be the game you want.

as an edit... its a "what if" wargame based on warsaw pact, nato, 80's equipment. The system the game uses is great and most important it's fun, but not based on any historical conflict.

[joeyeti]

WitE has quite many smaller scenarios, especially if you also buy the first and second expansions. Together it adds up to nearly 30 scenarios and campaigns (big and smaller) in total and roughly around 10 separately in each third.

I too am at a loss why DCCB (and its older brother DC: Warsaw to Paris) each only have like two or three smaller scenarios... The engine of those is precisely what I was searching for in such a game (together with the cards and stuff), but I cannot comprehend, why NO ONE has done any external scenarios since the release of both games?

Especially DCCB could have many of those scenarios found in WitE replicated, if we would only resort to blatant copying...

EDIT:
If Flashpoint comes with a WW2 version/expansion, count me in I guess!

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Thanks Rick. Is there either - or any other game - that you would say has less micromanaging? Where - as in CO - you give orders to higher level units and don't need to give orders to every single piece on the board, as it were, because there's some manner of friendly AI that executes your higher level orders for the subordinate units?

One other game that has somewhat what you refer to is Panzer Command Ostfront. But the higher level orders only work for one level of command. ie if you give a Platoon HQ an advance order, all the squads (or tanks) in the platoon will advance unless you specifically order one of the to not advance so you might have anywhere from 2-10 units advancing based on the Platoon HQ order. I should also point out that I should be considered biased when it comes to PCO as I was part of the development team.

I thought there were some others that also had this feature, but I'll have to do some more thinking. I thought the original SSG battlefront series did this as well on a Division-Regt scale, but that was 20+ years ago, not the current reincarnation. I vaguely recall them saying they moved away from that model because users complained about not having enough control of their units.

Rick

[Arjuna]

There have been a few other series that have attempted to model command structures but most are non-scalable - ie they can handle one level down and that's it. Cmd Ops is the only engine I know of that is truly scalable in that way.

[Perturabo]

How about trying Fire-brigade?

[BletchleyGeek]

Played pretty much everything:

[*] SSG games - They're kind of beautiful but sadly they don't work very well with contemporary graphics drivers / resolutions. On my laptop res (1376x768) I get the graphics corrupted whenever a pop-up comes up. Haven't tried tweaking Windows compatibility modes, etc. On the other hand, if you fight your way across compatibility issues, Across the Dnepr is well-worth a playthrough as the German... as the Soviet, not at all (I haven't tried ComradeP mod, as I have never been able to find it).

[*] WitE - I can honestly recommend to play the scenarios, the engine shines there. The campaign games are badly hamstrung by certain issues (although the most recent patch addresses major concerns over the First Winter modelling). Just look up "Lvov gambit" or "Lvov pocket" on WitE forums to get a taste of what I mean. On the other hand, I am not playing it anymore. The combination of (1) incredibly forgiving logistics to develop major offensives, (2) 1-week turns in IGO-UGO format where amoured units have enough MP's to exploit a breakthrough and achieve penetrations of over 100 kms in your rear, (3) very limited reaction capabilities for the non-phasing player, (4) isolation rules which almost guarantee the destruction of any encircled units with minimal casualties in your next turn and (5) disengaging from enemy contact is always successful and comes for free, have grown too much over me.

[*] John Tiller's Panzer Campaigns - I like these a lot (Kharkov'42, Stalingrad'42 and Kharkov'43 being my favorites) but they're really busy work to play.

[*] The cheapest option might be the best - just grab a copy of Atomic Games' Stalingrad or Velikiye Luki. 20 years after its release, I still think it's something everybody needs to play at least once.

[joeyeti]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

How about trying Fire-brigade?

Is there perhaps a gameplay video of Fire Brigade? From the screenshots I am somewhat lacking the final push to check it out...

[Phoenix100]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Now I'm not so sure....

Fire Brigade? You mean Panther Games 'Fire Brigade'? That's not even available anymore, is it? Or do you mean another?

I'll look at all these games, anyway. But it's true that none of them seem to deliver even near to what CO has to offer.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: joeyeti

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

How about trying Fire-brigade?

Is there perhaps a gameplay video of Fire Brigade? From the screenshots I am somewhat lacking the final push to check it out...

I must say I never played Fire Brigade , I was too young for that...

[joeyeti]

Wait... I was confused by Armored Brigade [8|]
Do not know Fire Brigade, but it might be too old for me from the description (i.e. not willing to check it out at all).

[Phoenix100]

I've seen Armoured Brigade. But I was just wanting to try WW2 Eastern Front.