I had a Dream

[ernieschwitz]

I had a dream: isn't that the most common way a project begins?

My vision was formed by games like 3rd Reich, Hearts of Iron, and more... So I sat down and worked my tail off. Which is what has to happen for a project to succeed. So how did I do that? I took a very game that lent itself to mod as much as possible to get to my vision. I was lucky, I chose a good one for that purpose, but I was also unlucky. Development takes time. Things get old fast in this world of computer games.

Never the less I soldiered on, and I am now on the 5th year of modding a game. The game that I made, or mod, or what you want to call it (Names get confusing when you mod something to work differently), is in my opinion great. Of course I am biased, I made it. So I would like you to come try it out, when the next version is made available. A see what I've done experience.

Where can you try my mod, you might ask? Obviously you need to have the game that I modded to try it. That game is Advanced Tactics Gold. An old banger from 2011, I believe, and hasn't been updated for years.... until recently, when two guys, that both had a lot of experience with the game, and programming ability decided to ask for the impossible. The right to keep it updated. Incredibly they got a yes! So from this summer, or so Advanced Tactics Gold has been getting updates made by this team of two, that includes me, and perhaps the most talented of us two, Erich Ormand.

So, we have a team who pro-bono are making updates to the game, and making it fresh, and a mod I'd like you to try.

What is the name of this mod. Well not all children are born with a sexy name, like "Thunder of Gods", or "War for the Ages"... This one was born with the name Global Domination, 1938 version 3. Because it was my third stab at it. Shorthand for it is often GD, or GD1938. Considering I had five years to make it, one would think that I'd give it a better name, but alas, time and habit took over. So I beg you not to judge it by it's name, but by it's feel, it's play and the time put into it.

The game is found here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/advanced-tactics-gold

And the developer, Victor Reijkersz of VRDesigns, has a scenario bank here:

https://www.vrdesigns.net/community.php

I will put it up there, when the final touches have been made to this new version, the 9th iteration.

Glad you read this long.

TLDR; I made a mod, go look, it's good.

[ernieschwitz]

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World map (bigger than World in Flames, Strategic Command: World at War, and more)

[ernieschwitz]

The European theater of operations, as presented at start of game.

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[ernieschwitz]

The 2nd Sino-Japanese war (January 10th 1938)

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[ernieschwitz]

You don't have to view all the units as if they were in a single stack in a hex. There is a "zoomed in mode".

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Also you can design your own TO&E for units, from a combination of available NATO counter symbols.

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[Rising-Sun]

That is interesting, didnt realize that you can make it that big with advanced tactics. During the early stage of the war 1936+ how is the OOBs are set up? Forts, gun emplacements, naval groups, etc. Wasnt sure if this advanced tactic has everything you need to make it feel close as the real thing.

Must have taken alot of efforts to build this, good job!

[ernieschwitz]

Thanks, yes, it did take a very long time

The map alone took about 6 months, and isn't a copy of any existing game's. I found a way to make it bigger than the max settings of the scenario creation allowed for, and it works. There were some troubles with slowness in the beginning, where it would take an unacceptable time between turns, but with a look at why, by Vic, a few code optimations, and such, and it is much better now. Still takes time though.

The game plays out very close to reality, without shoehorning players into a specific strategy. I don't like simulations, so it is a plausible reality. You make many choices during creation of such a big game, and one of them is how close to reality you want to go, and how much of a functional game you want.

The OOBs are as close to reality as we were able to make them. There are some caveats regarding for instance the Chinese. No-one seem to know exactly how many divisions they mustered, and where they were at the starting time of the game (January 1938). There are also some considerations that have to be made because of balance. Some of them stemming from ATG architecture.

After some people ridiculed me for having "cookie cutter divisions", I made sure to make the TO&E of units resemble that of the real thing. I did a lot of research into that. For instance there are more than 100 Soviet divisions. So that means trying to find the TO&E for those. While I did not do that precisely I made an examination into how many of each equipment type each nation had in their Infantry divisions (for instance) and then made templates that I could add different equipment types to, based on the total amount of equipment available.

I used sources, such as Niehorster for that, for instance, and games helped me get an idea if my OOBs were realistic or not. Having begun in 1938 in January, no-one has exact information. I had to look up which cities, city by city, that were Japanese in China for instance, in January. There is no map or graphic for that anywhere. Naval groups, everything basically, is as exact as possible.

We have around 1000 unique subformation types. This means that every type of tank, plane, carrier, battleship, cruisers, destroyers, subs and more are able to be built. There are also nearly 400 officers, and I plan on adding more.

Basically, if there is a problem, we try and solve it.

[Rising-Sun]

For China parts, is tricky. They had some elite units and alot of poor militias as well. When the war broke out, they grab alot of farmers and people nearby that had no combat experience and poorly equip too. Just like the Korea War, sadly those guys just run all over the place without proper gears for the winter and barely any supplies to make up for the war.

Now i looked into this game, saw that stock Pacific War, mention only for human to human players. So you mention you made this all by yourself, can you play against the AI? Like to get into something like HoI Series, only few from paradox i like and the rest is garbage to me. I think my fav would be Darkest Hours along with few adjustments.

[ernieschwitz]

Unfortunately no AI. It is not like it is a big loss though. The AI is not good in standard ATG, and it cannot understand things like cards and long term research. The game does have HOI vibes to it.

I thought you (all of you) could get a kick out of seeing some of the formations of units, and an officer.

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We are a dedicated group of players who make sure to have games going all the time. I think right now we have 6 games going. You can play as few as 3 players. USSR is a special case, so has to be played alone. It is neither an Axis nor an Ally. Another principle of mine was to have no major country start out "asleep". So everyone can build up the way they want, and get to test their exact strategy out.

[ernieschwitz]

Oh, and I just remembered.

One of my players told me that he likes Hearts of Iron, but likes this better.

I think it is because it is more faithful to history, and you can better control what to produce, down to 10s of tanks of a specific kind.

We have a slack channel too, where we discuss and such. I made a manual, and there is an upcoming release that will have some documentation too, as well as a pdf file for what you get when you research what.

[RangerJoe]

Slack is very nice.

[Rising-Sun]

I still like the very first HoI though and Darkest Hour is probably the lastest. I didnt like what Paradox did to fourth series, just too plain and stupid AI, but on the other hand, players vs players is entirely different and believe that where all the good reviews is coming from.

[ernieschwitz]

You are right, Hearts of Iron is a great game. To me though it is too wide in its allowance of alternative history. Conquer the world with Albania anyone? Of course this is probably against the AI, but still.

[Kuokkanen]

Things get old fast in this world of computer games.

Why should that be a problem? Games from 1970's are still sold and played on new hardware without any changes to the games themselves. I myself keep playing old favourites that have been around at least 15 years. Yesterday I played Galaxian, and just hours ago I played MekWars.

[ernieschwitz]

I think few people think: I want to try something new (like my scenario/mod/game) and then say, let me get out something old. That is why I think it might be a problem.

[gamer78]

Well this isn't the market for Red Army General Frunze against Taşkent Soviet once Ageod had a game for. Go for your heart content. If you are Danish go for your continent my advice would be an just like an Austrialian dev for Strategic Command. He is brilliant and fresh for ideas working in Americas content and some of Asia. Working with developer should be better.

[Elessar2]

Heh, you caught the bug too?

I am currently crafting an European scenario for Strategic Command Europe, w/ 12 mi hexes.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... &start=140

I am presently focusing on the map itself, and have recently passed the approximate halfway point. I am a big geography buff and have used any resource I can find to make it as detailed as I can (most of the work uses Google Maps). I decided on a divisional scale even tho SC doesn't allow stacking (it does allow bigger units up to army level but I want specific division types for specific tasks without the bigger units dominating), so I'll likely have to compromise on the # of divisions (~60-80% of what was actually used).

It's a definite adventure. Several times I have felt like I was losing my mind trying to resolve various map paradoxes, inaccuracies, and compromises. Working on Morocco right now. Getting manuever warfare working right will be my #1 focus.

[gamer78]

Map of France looks very detailed. Thanks for it. As very old continent European conflicts offers much more conflicts. Yet there are only a few games on it.