Matrix Games Forums

I saw and download High Command from the Underdog site. The graphic is much better than Clash of Steel. If anyone has played Hicom, please give some opinion as compared to Clash of Steel Future Editor ( also on the Underdog site ). I know these games are of different scale, well a little bit, than WIR.

Thanks
Dexter

Hello!
Please can you tell me the complete address of the Underdog site? I am interested to play High Command or Clash of steel, but I don't have yet these games.
Thank you!

Originally posted by dextertt:
I saw and download High Command from the Underdog site. The graphic is much better than Clash of Steel. If anyone has played Hicom, please give some opinion as compared to Clash of Steel Future Editor ( also on the Underdog site ). I know these games are of different scale, well a little bit, than WIR.

Thanks
Dexter

High Command looks nice but the AI is crap. I've played the Axis twice and have always ended up invading and crushing England(end of game)by late '41 and then it's all over. this is besides taking All of N/Africa and even Iraq in one game. I've not played the Allies
but can imagine the same process holds true(ie: they crush the axis but not so fast).

To Fabio

The Underdogs are at http://www.theunderdogs.org/

Nick, aka Loki of the Aesir

Thank you very much!
Bythe way, is anyone interested in a PBEM WIR game with me? I play any side (not very well...)

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir:
High Command looks nice but the AI is crap. I've played the Axis twice and have always ended up invading and crushing England(end of game)by late '41 and then it's all over. this is besides taking All of N/Africa and even Iraq in one game. I've not played the Allies
but can imagine the same process holds true(ie: they crush the axis but not so fast).

To Fabio

The Underdogs are at http://www.theunderdogs.org/

Nick, aka Loki of the Aesir

Yes, the AI is poor to be kind. No matter what side you play its possible to rule the world by 1942. But, fortunately its possible to play the game via email. It just takes awhile, because you have to play each phase separately . I've been playing one game for just over a year...not exactly real time, but fun nonetheless.

Hi!

High Command is far more complex than Clash of Steel.So I don't know CoS Future Edition, I have only played CoS.
I think CoS is fun to play because it is more "arcade" like than High Command. For HC you need time.

One Tip: Before you force England to surrender, declare war on Russia. If you don't do it and conquered England, you win the game, but have no opportunity to conquer russia.
Keep your economy running!
So long...

Since other games than War in Russia have been brought up, I have downloaded from the Underdog site the V for Victory series. They work fine on my computer. Has anyone had any experience with these games? They seem quite detailed. But what about the AI? Is it decent in these games?

Thanks! :rolleyes:

Longstreet:

I played V for Victory many years and recall that the AI was a little weak. No matter what side I played I found it easy to win any scenario. Of course, that could just mean that the scenarios are balanced.

If I remember correctly some scenarios were a little sticky for the Allies though, namely the Market-Garden one. They were excellent games though.

Does anyone know what to do to be able to run Clash of Steel - Future edition on WIN 98? I just get an error message flashing (briefly!) and the dos windows closes.

Same thing happens after rebooting in DOS mode (but without a closing DOS window, of course. )

Yogi:

I had the same problem running it under Win2000 but didn't really try to troubleshoot it. My initial guess is that it is either a memory problem (DOS memory that is) or a video problem. A lot of old DOS games are very particular about memory and video. It's also possible that the original file you DL'd is no good. A lot of the files on Underdogs do not work.

Good luck.

Yogi,

I couldn't get future edition to work either. Was getting a run time error 200 or something like that. Would appreciate some assistance

Originally posted by Danny:
I couldn't get future edition to work either. Was getting a run time error 200 or something like that. Would appreciate some assistance

I've got a machine that's about 1.5 years old, and I can't get *either* High Command or Clash to work. One just locks up while the installation program of the other freaks when it sees tens of megabytes of XMS memory available (256M in the machine). The calculations go haywire and the program refuses to install, thinking I have no XMS.

High Command is absolutely terrible. I can't think of any redeeming features in it all (its worst feature is tedium), I actually paid money for it years ago, and a few months ago downloaded it for free only to discover its still a ripoff even free! The worst bit was how much the rules patted themselves on the back. If the designer disagrees - he can send my money back.

Clash of Steel tends to be maligned a bit, because it looks simple, but it actually has a lot in it. Diplomacy is simple sure, but you can pressure neutrals like spain to your side, air combat is simple, but tangible, naval combat is simple, but still includes ships, airpower, subs, amphibous, Land combat is done well, your army groups are act as supply centres and nearby korps draw supply - a korps very close will fight at 90% efficiency, the further away the less effective, because the army groups are your slowest moving units you must decide your objectives early in a campaign and set them on their axis of advance. Overall its like a good 'integrated' 'dynamic' boardgame would be.

Two other excelllent games you should be aware of, Eastfront board & computer game by Columbia Games is a brilliant 'strategic' russian front game (no ai but plenty opponents), and a beta version of the computer version of the World in Flames is available around the place (i think clash of steel was in fact inspired be several WIF systems.

By the way i think i'm having that ems type problem with age of rifles, or it could be the video card.

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
Does anyone know what to do to be able to run Clash of Steel - Future edition on WIN 98? I just get an error message flashing (briefly!) and the dos windows closes.

Same thing happens after rebooting in DOS mode (but without a closing DOS window, of course. )

CLASH OF STEEL was written in PASCAL which has a known bug for any computer operating above 200Mhz or so. The origonal version of COS could be patched, but to play COS-FUTURE EDITION one would have to use one of the "slow down" utilities to bring your computer to this effective speed.

Radical,

You must be right since I was able to play cos-fe on a p1 -166mhz machine.

Danny

Originally posted by radical:
CLASH OF STEEL was written in PASCAL which has a known bug for any computer operating above 200Mhz or so. The origonal version of COS could be patched, but to play COS-FUTURE EDITION one would have to use one of the "slow down" utilities to bring your computer to this effective speed.

Yep, that was the problem. With Turbo slow-down utility at 85% Clash of Steel Future Edition worked just fine.

Its great fun, and actually more challenging than WIR (tougher AI and MEAN partisans).
One question though - why are the scenarios named 2039, 2040, 2043 etc instead of 1939, 1940...?

Are we supposed to belive WW2 is about to happen again on this side of the millenium?

Originally posted by radical:
to play COS-FUTURE EDITION one would have to use one of the "slow down" utilities to bring your computer to this effective speed.

Arrgh! I just checked, COS-FE is the one who's install program won't complete. It insists I have no XMS. Bummer.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:



Arrgh! I just checked, COS-FE is the one who's install program won't complete. It insists I have no XMS. Bummer.

Ed, if you use win98-se or earlier, edit your config.sys as below to get xms (extended
memory) and ems (expanded memory) added for your dos games. You should also get about 622K for conventional memory for dos games. This won't work for win98-me because that OS is not directly built on top of DOS. You should be able to run WIR, PACWAR and most other DOS games with no problems under win98-se or earlier with the below. Remember to use a slowdown utility for COS-FE.

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.sys
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE AUTO RAM MIN=0
A=64 H=120 D=256 AUTO NOTR
DOS=UMB
DOS=HIGH
LASTDRIVEHIGH=Z

Originally posted by radical:


Ed, if you use win98-se or earlier, edit your config.sys as below to get xms (extended
memory) and ems (expanded memory) added for your dos games.

Oh no, I've been messing with autoexec.bat, config.sys, himem.sys, and emm386.exe for years. I have XMS enabled. The problem is the calculation the install program does is printed on the screen as a negative number, so it thinks I have no XMS. Odds are it doesn't know how to deal with a 256Mb RAM system. Integer overflow, maybe.