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Slitherine Press Announcement - For immediate release

You Sank my Battleship!
Order of Battle: Pacific is coming on April 30, on PC
Epsom, UK - April 10, 2015.

"Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves." (Chester W. Nimitz – US Fleet Admiral)

The Pacific Ocean: more than 160 million square kilometers of water. December 1941 - On one side the Imperial Japanese Navy with more than 400 ships and 1750 planes. On the other, the US Pacific Fleet with more than 200 vessels and hundreds of planes. An intense and merciless hide and seek game is about to start on the world's largest ocean!

In Order of Battle: Pacific, players will be able to take command of both nations in a dynamic series of campaigns for supremacy in this strategic Theater of Operations. Iconic battles will be featured, but the performance of the players will directly influence the course of each campaign. Only commanders who know how to effectively combine land, air and naval units will have the chance to plant their flag on the multiple Pacific Islands.

Order of Battle: Pacific has now an official release date, as the game will be available on April 30! Developer The Artistocrats are now working on the final details to ensure a safe and successful ceremonial ship launching, later this month.

In the meantime, the official trailer of the game, introducing the Theater of Operations and some of its iconic units has just been released alongside the official Steam page.
http://matrixgames.us7.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=2e5c82d1bde1bba81847e9b09&id=293c725947&e=f05937f09c

Get more information on Order of Battle: Pacific from its official product page.
http://matrixgames.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2e5c82d1bde1bba81847e9b09&id=3a42fb8a00&e=f05937f09c

Note from Boggit:
When I saw this last year at HOW2014, I thought it was looking really good - and it's now been a further year in development

Thanks Boggit. Is a preorder option available at Matrix or Steam?

The game is now gold and 10 days from release :) To spice up the count-down we'll be releasing various videos and other content over the next few days.

Today starts with a short unit preview about the unique Type4 Ha-To 300mm mortar carrier (http://www.the-artistocrats.com/unit-preview-type-4-ha-go-300mm-mortar-carrier/).

Quote from: Gusington on April 12, 2015, 10:40:25 AM
Thanks Boggit. Is a preorder option available at Matrix or Steam?

Preorder isn't available but Steam does have a wishlist option which I believe keeps you up to date on game news such as the pending release.

GIGGITY very excited for this release.

I share the giggity one's excitement   :coolsmiley:

More unit previews!

Damn! Now that's a mortar.

Quote from: Sir Slash on April 20, 2015, 10:33:57 PM
Damn! Now that's a mortar.

Yes. But I'm concerned over some of its stats. For instance, it seems to have very low range with just one star. I'm not sure what measure of distance one star is considered in the game, but this weapon had a range of close to two miles. I would expect that to have more stars, again, without knowing what each star represents, or what measure of space a single hex represents.

Also I seem to recall it was terribly inaccurate. More of a terror weapon than an actual effective piece. But still I'm glad to see some unique units, as long as they don't get too unique.

Quote from: Sir Slash on April 21, 2015, 09:45:45 AM
Also I seem to recall it was terribly inaccurate. More of a terror weapon than an actual effective piece. But still I'm glad to see some unique units, as long as they don't get too unique.

Haven't you seen the war dogs, flaming pigs, Amazonian warriors and screaming naked Celts?

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on April 21, 2015, 10:37:31 AM

Quote from: Sir Slash on April 21, 2015, 09:45:45 AM
Also I seem to recall it was terribly inaccurate. More of a terror weapon than an actual effective piece. But still I'm glad to see some unique units, as long as they don't get too unique.

Haven't you seen the war dogs, flaming pigs, Amazonian warriors and screaming naked Celts?

And that's just in the Australian unit list!!! ;)

Quote from: Gusington on April 12, 2015, 10:40:25 AM
Thanks Boggit. Is a preorder option available at Matrix or Steam?

I don't know. They have done it before though.

I understand the Screaming Naked Celts only have a 6-8in. zone of control. ::) That's why they're screaming.

Sorry - is this not just Panzer General 3D?

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 21, 2015, 12:09:29 PM
Sorry - is this not just Panzer General 3D?

Sort of. It is closer to Panzer Korps. The developer Lukas Nijsten previously worked on Panzer Korps, Commander Great War etc. However, it does have its own distinct flavour, and isn't just a clone. When I first saw it about a year ago I was interested, as it had a lot more hidden depth than I was expecting. Originally, I wasn't expecting much more than PzGeneral 3-d, but after I'd seen it I thought it was worth following.

Well I bought Panzer Corps when it was released and whilst I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, it was very simplistic. Once you worked out how and where to move the equipment you needed, it was a no-brainer. Added to that was the lack of manoeuvrability - mainly forced on the player by time limits in scenarios.

This looks similar. It sounds like it's go more depth. But as it looks very similar, I can only imagine it's going to have similar constraints.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 21, 2015, 01:16:38 PM
Well I bought Panzer Corps when it was released and whilst I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, it was very simplistic. Once you worked out how and where to move the equipment you needed, it was a no-brainer. Added to that was the lack of manoeuvrability - mainly forced on the player by time limits in scenarios.

This looks similar. It sounds like it's go more depth. But as it looks very similar, I can only imagine it's going to have similar constraints.

FWIW, in your shoes I'd wait and see what the reaction is. I thought it went a bit further than Panzer Korps, but clearly there are similarities. I wouldn't describe it as a grog game, but more of a lighter beer and pretzels type game. I think there will be challenges, especially with amphibious ops. If you look at it as a grog game, I think you'll be disappointed - it's not War in the West or CM:BS. If you look at it for what it is you may enjoy it as a departure from the usual WW2 game. :)

It's the Pacific. I'm in.

QuoteWell I bought Panzer Corps when it was released and whilst I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, it was very simplistic. Once you worked out how and where to move the equipment you needed, it was a no-brainer.

As Boggit said, this certainly isn't a West in the Pacific/East/... style game but more closely to Panzer General. However we did add a lot more detailed combat mechanics and a supply system which can be very punishing: the AI is very eager to cut your units off supply if it gets the chance.

There will be another Twitch TV session on Slitherine's channel tomorrow. If you are curious about the gameplay you should certainly tune in.

And finally, the next unit preview featuring US Raider Marines and some of its special abilities:
http://www.the-artistocrats.com/9-unit-preview-raider-marines/

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 21, 2015, 01:16:38 PM
Well I bought Panzer Corps when it was released and whilst I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, it was very simplistic. Once you worked out how and where to move the equipment you needed, it was a no-brainer. Added to that was the lack of manoeuvrability - mainly forced on the player by time limits in scenarios.

This looks similar. It sounds like it's go more depth. But as it looks very similar, I can only imagine it's going to have similar constraints.

The turn limits are mostly longer in this one.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 21, 2015, 01:16:38 PM
Well I bought Panzer Corps when it was released and whilst I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, it was very simplistic. Once you worked out how and where to move the equipment you needed, it was a no-brainer. Added to that was the lack of manoeuvrability - mainly forced on the player by time limits in scenarios.

This looks similar. It sounds like it's go more depth. But as it looks very similar, I can only imagine it's going to have similar constraints.

Particularly agree on the PzC time limits, which gave you little option but to move your units their full movement allowance forward every turn.  If you vary from that formula more than a couple of times in a game, you can't get the top victory condition.  That's not the way I like to fight my battles.

We tried to be more generous with the turn limits, instead adding secondary objectives if you manage to achieve things quickly. The latter will provide useful bonuses, but are not required to complete the missions.

I'm not sure. I am not a huge fan of turn limits. I used to think "meh" about them because I took the view "It's a military operation...they want you to complete it by day x and time y"

However, it became very obviously a game thing. If the AI is competent enough and the maps and scenarios are well designed, then I tend to think there shouldn't be a limit. I should lose because the AI managed to force a heavy toll whichever route I took - or me on the AI.

So as I've got older, I've been less and less impressed with time limits...especially once which are overly tight.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 22, 2015, 12:30:17 AM
I'm not sure. I am not a huge fan of turn limits. I used to think "meh" about them because I took the view "It's a military operation...they want you to complete it by day x and time y"

Well, you guys DID produce Monty. He didn't like turn limits either   ;D

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvignette2.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fdoblaje%2Fimages%2F9%2F99%2FBernard_L_Montgomery.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%2Fscale-to-width%2F230%3Fcb%3D20121231012659%26amp%3Bpath-prefix%3Des&hash=f9fdc2258d12fee275f575e94d1f0e24ad69d78f)

QuoteHowever, it became very obviously a game thing. If the AI is competent enough and the maps and scenarios are well designed, then I tend to think there shouldn't be a limit. I should lose because the AI managed to force a heavy toll whichever route I took - or me on the AI.

The main reason is the next scenario in the campaign starts at a specific date. If the date in the previous scenario exceeds that you can buy new equipment which suddenly isn't available any more at the start of the next mission.

Hi all,

We will be playing the game live tonight, so you can see the game in action yourselves and fire away any questions at the devs/producer. So feel free to join us at www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup

Cheers,

Surtur

Quote from: Adherbal on April 22, 2015, 06:27:16 AM

QuoteHowever, it became very obviously a game thing. If the AI is competent enough and the maps and scenarios are well designed, then I tend to think there shouldn't be a limit. I should lose because the AI managed to force a heavy toll whichever route I took - or me on the AI.

The main reason is the next scenario in the campaign starts at a specific date. If the date in the previous scenario exceeds that you can buy new equipment which suddenly isn't available any more at the start of the next mission.

I hear you, but that's still a "game thing".  If the Allies had won a battle a month earlier, the next battle might have started a month earlier, with or without the appropriate equipment.

For me, it starts to strain the sense of immersion.  More tellingly, it also creates a repetitiveness of play style that I find disengaging after having played a number of similar titles the same way.  I'm all for creating a mechanic whereby players get rewarded for winning a scenario quickly (e.g., "Prestige Points"), but there need to be other ways to get those same rewards (e.g., by taking fewer casualties) and the need to win a scenario quickly shouldn't be the primary gating factor in terms of whether you win or lose the war.

That's a standard gaming convention these days, but it makes for less interesting game play than some other styles might.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 22, 2015, 12:30:17 AM
I'm not sure. I am not a huge fan of turn limits. I used to think "meh" about them because I took the view "It's a military operation...they want you to complete it by day x and time y"

However, it became very obviously a game thing. If the AI is competent enough and the maps and scenarios are well designed, then I tend to think there shouldn't be a limit. I should lose because the AI managed to force a heavy toll whichever route I took - or me on the AI.

So as I've got older, I've been less and less impressed with time limits...especially once which are overly tight.

+1

This is almost exactly my view. I find them an artificial consideration for the most part that means you have less time for recon and manoeuvre. I do make an exception for turn limits on occasion, having regard to specifically time dependent operations e.g. a commando operation where you have to hit the target but exfiltrate to transport to get away before the enemy responds, or something like an air raid where it is in and out (fuel considerations etc), but that's about it.

Quote from: Adherbal on April 21, 2015, 06:43:55 PM
We tried to be more generous with the turn limits, instead adding secondary objectives if you manage to achieve things quickly. The latter will provide useful bonuses, but are not required to complete the missions.

For the reasons I've mentioned I'm not a great fan of time limits, but it does make sense if you are going to use them to be on the generous side. I like the idea of adding secondary objectives.  O0

One other innovation if you must use time limits is to randomise the end turn by a couple of turns to keep players guessing. It can avoid some gamey play if you don't know it is the last turn.

I do know this: in BA2 Kursk, the time limit of the second German mission has been driving me bug nutty. Twice I was a hair's breadth from winning and twice because time ran out I did not get the win...no other reason. So after nerdraging I caught my breath and lowered the difficulty just to move on.

I have sympathy for game developers. Each of us has our quirks and our likes and dislikes. It's hard to please us all. Personally....artificial turn limits is a game killer for me. To others it's ok and even appreciated. Why not have both?  They do it with difficulty levels all the time. They do it with levels of micro-management too. Like HOI3 and Distant Worlds...you can pick and choose what you want to control and what you want to hand over to the AI.

Most of the time, time limits are a way to conceal inferior AI; adding challenge where there would otherwise be none.  As someone who prefers to play against humans, this is a small matter, but the last Panzer General clone I really enjoyed was Fantasy General, so I'm probably not the target demographic...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Surely there is no feasible way of doing a tactical level wargame with a continues campaign without time limits. If the player would be able to take as long as he wants, that would require every scenario to cover pretty much the entire war.

For example Poland 1939. The player decides to have a picknick of 3 years before moving any units, ending turn after turn. How should the game handle this? Simulate a whole world-wide campaign in the background where eventually the French and British attack and conquer Germany and finally stumble upon the player's units from the west? As fun and dynamic as that may sound, it's makes no sense from a game design point of view. It still costs a hell of a lot of time and money to develop a game  :)

If you really want a historical/realistic explanation for time-limits, why not consider it as "being relieved from command" for failing to stay anywere close to the time-table layed out by high command. So it's not necessarily the mission failing, but your personal carrier as military commander ;)

In regard to Order of Battle, I can assure you none of the timelimits are designed to "add a challenge" in any mission. However it does force the player to at least fight the battle in a realistic manner. Aside from the issues mentioned above, nothing would stop the player from just wittling down the enemy with long range artillery and battleship bombardment. I'm sure this would've been a possible way to handle operations such as the Leyte invasion, but a commander applying that strategy would not be allowed to stay in position for long. Certainly not the many years it would take to end the war that way  :) Time is a vital element in war after all.

Well what are the chances of someone taking a picnic?

I think the general consensus is time limits specifically put in to prevent the user from doing anything out the norm to give the AI a chance...and to give the impression of a difficult time.

Again I'm specifically refereeing to Panzer Corps here where Que Cleary there was very, very little chance of the user actually going any other way than the designer wanted them to. When that 88 was blocking the road, there was seldom any chance to manoeuvre...all you could really do was make sure the right units were in the right place.

I believe secondary objectives were on there as well.

The time limit thing was Gannett because it was sooooo right. There was absolutely no room for going off the beaten track.

I'm not NOT a fan of time constraints. I just don't like when they are to hide a mechanic

The element of time provides tension, it is an essential element in the Panzer General genre. I think general McClellan from the American Civil War is the perfect example of a general taking his sweet time marshaling his forces, regardless of the realities of war.

I come down on the designer's side here. Having tight turn limits is realistic, not to mention an essential element in this type of game.

edit- I see Steelgrave beat me to the punch with his Monty quip.

And most people unfairly compare with sandbox games.
Even Combat Mission has time limits.

I know CM has time limits. IMO, they are not gamey and give you time to do what you need to do and imo they are not particularly unrealistic.

Of course the difference between those games is stark and very obvious so not a fair comparison. This was brought up here because of the similarities between this and Panzer Corps in terms of play style.

I'm not a fan of time limits but I understand they have a place in some games. I'd still rather not have them at all though or at least an option to either vary the time limit or switch it off.

Ultimately I'd like to use my head to decide what way to tackle the problem, not have a timer determine it.

I've been pretty clear (I think) about my general dislike for the PG engine since the days of Fantasy General, but it bears repeating that there's a wide gulf between time limits as they exist in CM, Scourge of War, Ultimate General, the Tiller games above the tactical level, &c., and the way they exist in PG and a couple other titles where they're used as a key element in scenario balance.  Of course this only matters in single-player games or MP game played competitively.  When playing MP otherwise, it's far better to let the game end and the two (or more) players get together and argue about who won and who lost over alcohol.

Taking just a small pair of examples, I have no need of a turn limit or even a scoring system to tell me that both panzerde and Barth have had the better of me in our respective PzC games.

It's entirely a matter of preference, but I think proponents would be better served to confess that turn limits are, like victory points, a game convention rather than attempting to rationalize them in "real world" terms.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Quote from: Gusington on April 23, 2015, 08:56:45 AM
I do know this: in BA2 Kursk, the time limit of the second German mission has been driving me bug nutty. Twice I was a hair's breadth from winning and twice because time ran out I did not get the win...no other reason. So after nerdraging I caught my breath and lowered the difficulty just to move on.

I find the turn limits in BA2 to be VERY generous, especially compared to the first game. I've played through the original campaigns, and the German Kursk campaign, and I've only found myself feeling rushed on one or two occasions.

There's a German mission in the second campaign that is absolutely brutal in terms of time limits. I forget the name, but you must move quickly through a 'weak' Russian defense and cross a bridge fortified with Russian defenders. It took me 3 or 4 solid attempts to win.

Panzer Corps is a different story. Obviously its a much larger scale, and I want time to actually develop a strategy, use reconnaissance, then form a solid course of action. Rarely have I ever won a mission in the allotted time. In most cases I use cheats to add 10 to 15 extra turns.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 25, 2015, 12:37:57 AM
I'd still rather not have them at all though or at least an option to either vary the time limit or switch it off.

I tend to agree with you there, but I think the game in question is a bit less time abstract. In Panzer Korps, since a turn was rather abstract, variable time limits would make sense, depending on the difficulty level.

Quote from: Cyrano on April 23, 2015, 06:53:43 PM
Most of the time, time limits are a way to conceal inferior AI; adding challenge where there would otherwise be none.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

+1
No problem with the concept of time limits, i understand the need for them. As long as they are reasonable, using time limits to make the game more difficult and forcing you to play a certain way is no fun for me. You can usually tell thats the case if a game has different levels of victory for finishing a scenario faster.

Quote from: Swatter on April 25, 2015, 03:47:15 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 25, 2015, 12:37:57 AM
I'd still rather not have them at all though or at least an option to either vary the time limit or switch it off.

I tend to agree with you there, but I think the game in question is a bit less time abstract. In Panzer Korps, since a turn was rather abstract, variable time limits would make sense, depending on the difficulty level.

I personally like the idea of having an option for time limits, and also a time limit with a varied/random few turns added to keep a bit of uncertainty.

Its been released.

I saw JH playing it last night. I won't get to it for a week or two but I am excited.

I'm having fun playing around with it. It's very pretty, and the combat seems to be meshing well for the game, I like the support feature for ATG's as well as artillery. The only minor gripe I have so far is that the game could do with a smooth scroll feature, as moving across screens can be a bit "jerky". It's by no means a big deal, and is more to do with gameplay aesthetics as far as I am concerned. I'll comment more when I have played more, but so far so good!  O0

Can aircraft share hexes with ground units?

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 30, 2015, 10:13:02 AM
Can aircraft share hexes with ground units?

Yes.

Quote from: Boggit on April 30, 2015, 10:02:19 AM
I'm having fun playing around with it. It's very pretty, and the combat seems to be meshing well for the game, I like the support feature for ATG's as well as artillery. The only minor gripe I have so far is that the game could do with a smooth scroll feature, as moving across screens can be a bit "jerky". It's by no means a big deal, and is more to do with gameplay aesthetics as far as I am concerned. I'll comment more when I have played more, but so far so good!  O0

Just realised I can alter the map scroll speed in options! :-[ That's better.

Does anyone know - can recon units block enemy supply for the one hex they are in? I know they can't capture ground per se, but can they interdict supply by occupying a hex?

Just had an odd AI decision - Infantry in a vp town with my armour, and infantry adjacent. It is cut off, but I have captured all other supply sources, so it abandons its position in the town to one in the open, allowing me to take the last remaining supply source, and crush it with my tanks in the open. Odd?

Quote from: Boggit on April 30, 2015, 10:19:09 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 30, 2015, 10:13:02 AM
Can aircraft share hexes with ground units?

Yes.

That's a step in the right direction

Quote from: Boggit on April 30, 2015, 10:54:25 AM
Just had an odd AI decision - Infantry in a vp town with my armour, and infantry adjacent. It is cut off, but I have captured all other supply sources, so it abandons its position in the town to one in the open, allowing me to take the last remaining supply source, and crush it with my tanks in the open. Odd?

That's not

How's the manual?

Quote from: Gusington on April 30, 2015, 12:44:09 PM
How's the manual?

Not bad, but the game isn't hard to figure out. I watched about 10 minutes of a 'Let's Play' video on YouTube and think that gave me all the basics I needed.

QuoteJust had an odd AI decision - Infantry in a vp town with my armour, and infantry adjacent. It is cut off, but I have captured all other supply sources, so it abandons its position in the town to one in the open, allowing me to take the last remaining supply source, and crush it with my tanks in the open. Odd?

Could it be that this made cut off your tank from supply? Obviously that would still be a silly move as your tank could take the AI unit's supply source the next turn, but it could explain why it left the town.

I'll try to reproduce the situation and see if we can tweak the AI to handle this better. It can be a bit overenthousiastic when it comes to cutting supply lines!

Quotethe game could do with a smooth scroll feature, as moving across screens can be a bit "jerky".

Note that you can also drag scroll by holding down the right mouse button.

Tip. AT will support adjacent hexes. So better get rid of them first before launching the main assault using tanks.

Quote from: Adherbal on April 30, 2015, 01:29:32 PM

QuoteJust had an odd AI decision - Infantry in a vp town with my armour, and infantry adjacent. It is cut off, but I have captured all other supply sources, so it abandons its position in the town to one in the open, allowing me to take the last remaining supply source, and crush it with my tanks in the open. Odd?

Could it be that this made cut off your tank from supply? Obviously that would still be a silly move as your tank could take the AI unit's supply source the next turn, but it could explain why it left the town.

I'll try to reproduce the situation and see if we can tweak the AI to handle this better. It can be a bit overenthousiastic when it comes to cutting supply lines!

Quotethe game could do with a smooth scroll feature, as moving across screens can be a bit "jerky".

Note that you can also drag scroll by holding down the right mouse button.

Thanks for the reply Lukas. I have no problem with the AI trying to sever my supply lines - that is a good feature. It did try to sever it from the sea, but I already had an overland route at the time it made the move. I have indicated what moved where in the screenshot. On its own it couldn't have cut my troops off, and instead put itself in a worse position by moving off the last supply source into less favourable terrain.

It's early game play for me, so I'm not reading much into it yet. I suppose the problem for the AI is that while you can tweak it to deal with common situations, there are always times when it doesn't see the bigger picture. It may just be a one off - but it just seemed an odd thing to happen.

Your drag scroll comment is useful. Thanks. O0

Quote from: Boggit on April 30, 2015, 06:03:49 PM
...and instead put itself in a worse position by moving off the last supply source into less favourable terrain.

That is the historical self-destructive tendency of the Japanese.

I think it was Boggit's 9 point jeep that scared the Japanese off.

Quote from: jomni on April 30, 2015, 06:44:43 PM

Quote from: Boggit on April 30, 2015, 06:03:49 PM
...and instead put itself in a worse position by moving off the last supply source into less favourable terrain.

That is the historical self-destructive tendency of the Japanese.

It should've come charging out into open terrain to attack an overwhelming force.

The AI does a ton of simulations in the background to find out what its best options are. I talked to the AI programmer and he thinks the unit must've determined that your next turn's attacks would kill it no matter what. The best remaining move it could find is to try and cut supply or run away. Of course from a human POV that still isn't an obvious decision, as sitting still and hoping the opponent doesn't attack (for whatever reason) makes more sense.

QuoteThat is the historical self-destructive tendency of the Japanese.

Sadly that excuse is invalid because there are no Japanese in the training scenarios  ;)

Here's some impressions.

I played the game last night. I only wanted to do it for maybe 30 minutes or so and do some other things, but I ended up playing it most of the night instead of just a brief time (maybe 2.5-3 hours or so). I didn't expect it to draw me in as quickly as it did.

I played the first few 'boot camp' scenarios. There are many of these tutorial missions, all interconnected, to get through if you want to explore the basics of this game. They are pretty simple and small at first, but ramp up in size and difficulty fairly quickly. I went through the first three, then saw there were more tutorial missions to go through. I got a little tired of 'intro' scenarios and wanted a taste of the real thing, so I then started up the Japanese Campaign.

The Japanese Campaign starts with the air raid on Pearl Harbor. Before you think it is a cakewalk, it most certainly is not. I managed to sink a lot of the ships in the harbor, but I took heavy losses in aircraft. So much so that the game made it a point to tell me how heavy my losses were and how that would have an effect on Japanese military fortunes, or something like that. I realized I pretty much screwed the pooch and would have to be more careful, so before that first mission ended I quit. (The last turn, the Americans shot down two more of my aircraft, and since you don't really start with a lot of them, things were no doubt made much worse for the future.)

One thing I'll mention is, this game does look and feel like Panzer General. I know that will turn a lot of people off, and will engage a lot more. Don't let this fool you, though; this is a much more polished version of that game system. The similarities are impossible to ignore (units start with a '10' strength, move around a hex-based map, conduct combat, capture objectives, you can build new units and repair damaged ones, and in the Campaign you can take along a 'core' set of units through each battle). There have been a lot of PG clones over the last few years. That all said, this is one of the better iterations of this system I've played. Then again, I enjoy Pacific War-themed games.

It's not for groggy grogs. It's simple, straightforward, and has a lot of features that you might like. The fog of war feature, for example, is not full; there's a band between what your units can see and what they cannot see, that is a few hexes wide and will display an icon if an enemy unit is present. You can't see what it is, but you can see if it is a ship, airplane, or what have you. As opposed to an 'all or nothing' FOW, this is pretty cool.

Another pretty cool (even if minor) thing is that aircraft can, of course, occupy the same hex as naval or land units. If you want to attack an enemy ship, for example, you park your aircraft overhead and then attack it. However - that's just for bombers. If you want to conduct a torpedo attack with, say, a Devastator, you need to move it NEXT to the ship you want to attack, not over it. (I made this mistake once - ONCE.) However, you might think the bomber over the ship will block it from other bombers, too - what if you have more than one that you want to attack with? Once a bomber attacks, it can move one hex in any direction - essentially, clearing the airspace over the target. So technically you can attack several times. You just gotta remember to clear the airspace first. If you go and select another unit and move it, and realize 'oh crap, I forgot to move that bomber,' you're hosed - the bomber will stay where it is.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

When landing troops on a beach on, say, an enemy-occupied island, you will probably have a Supply Ship. You need to move these adjacent to a beach hex, and the units that land will be supplied. Once you capture a port (or maybe a city, but I'm not clear on all of the supply rules), the Supply Ship doesn't need to stay on station any longer. Supply is important to the game, but it's not overwhelming to comprehend.

I enjoy managing the sea, air, and land aspects of this game. Everything seems to tie in pretty well and it doesn't feel like a giant game of rock-paper-scissors (though it is, in a way, since some units are much more effective against certain units than others). I like very much landing troops on a beach, and having them slug their way forward to fight it out. Then again as I said, I enjoy Pacific War-themed games, and the island-hopping, straight-up fighting of brutal island combat is particularly interesting to me. If you're 'meh' on the concept, you probably won't enjoy it as much as I have.

The game is, overall, pretty great in my opinion. I intend to return to it this weekend. I'll probably repeat all of this on the next GrogCast, too. :)

Nice write-up BC. Thanks!  O0

Oh great... another game that sounds interesting and will cost me money...  :buck2:

Is the campaign a bunch of linked set scenarios or are you able to direct where the war/fighting will go?

Barth, I've not played far enough to see, but I think they're linked. The tutorial missions are.

I forgot to mention something. If you don't complete a secondary objective in one mission, it could come bite you in the butt in later missions. In the tutorial, there's one secondary objective dealing with sinking an enemy cruiser. If you do not, it will show up in the next mission. I think that's a pretty neat feature.

Thanks for the impressions Banzai, did Panzer Corps have any supply considerations at all?

I think with a few screenshots BCs above post qualifies as an initial impressions piece...thanks BC!

Quote from: Adherbal on May 01, 2015, 06:55:49 AM
The AI does a ton of simulations in the background to find out what its best options are. I talked to the AI programmer and he thinks the unit must've determined that your next turn's attacks would kill it no matter what. The best remaining move it could find is to try and cut supply or run away. Of course from a human POV that still isn't an obvious decision, as sitting still and hoping the opponent doesn't attack (for whatever reason) makes more sense.

QuoteThat is the historical self-destructive tendency of the Japanese.

Sadly that excuse is invalid because there are no Japanese in the training scenarios  ;)

If it wasn't Japanese and this was just a training scenario, maybe it was a poorly trained USMC unit fresh out of New River that took the Marine Corps enthusiasm for a lean logistical tail a little too enthusiastically?     :)

Quote from: Banzai_Cat on May 01, 2015, 07:09:54 AM
Here's some impressions.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

Ships lose fire effectiveness when they move then shoot at the same turn. Rationale is When a ship moves (towards or away from the enemy), the amount of guns that can shoot (front turret or aft turret only) is less than the amount of guns when shooting at the sides (front, aft, etc.).

Quote from: jomni on May 01, 2015, 09:05:13 AM

Quote from: Banzai_Cat on May 01, 2015, 07:09:54 AM
Here's some impressions.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

Ships lose fire effectiveness when they move then shoot at the same turn. Rationale is When a ship moves, especially towards the enemy, the amount of guns that can shoot forward (front turret only) is less than the amount of guns when shooting at the sides (front, aft, etc.).

Makes sense to me. Only thing is I didn't see it applied 'universally,' which is why I called it odd. Seemed that sometimes you could get a good shot in and sometimes hammer an enemy with little effect. I'm sure there's more going on under the hood and I'm fine with some randomness in my game, so no worries there.

This is the last Slitherine game I'm ever buying.  >:( I'm done with this company, their false advertising and over-pricing.

Only TWO cooperative multiplayer scenarios. Is this a JOKE?  :2funny:
The developers kept pushing the ability to play cooperatively during pre-release, even going so far as to publish a 3-part AAR and twitch streaming.

No modding. All of the resource files are packed, and require 3rd party software to extract/pack- that we don't have. Again, developers claimed the game was easily modified during pre-release. The only reason Panzer Corps is still around is due to its modding community. This game has limited playability - short campaigns, and very few multiplayer scenarios - it won't last long.

This is strategy-lite, at best. Terrain plays no part in combat. For example, tanks have the same effects in urban environments than they do in open terrain.

Even on the hardest difficulty, the game is incredibly easy. The primary objectives are entirely too easy to accomplish, the only challenge comes with the secondary objectives - but then who cares.

I've waited a long time for this game - when it was first announced in October 2013 - now the developers have nothing but excuses for their shortcomings. "It's a small team" and "more content will come". Those are excuses, and not something I'm interested in - ESPECIALLY with the price tag that went on this product.

I can attest to the addictive quality of this game. Once you start playing, it will be hours before you come up for air.

I think the system is a really good one in certain aspects, and I would like to see different eras modeled with the engine. I think this one would be great for Cold War era games, like Korea and Vietnam.

Still the gripes of Apocalypse31 are valid, so YMMV.

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 01, 2015, 09:22:22 AM
I can attest to the addictive quality of this game. Once you start playing, it will be hours before you come up for air.

I think the system is a really good one in certain aspects, and I would like to see different eras modeled with the engine. I think this one would be great for Cold War era games, like Korea and Vietnam.

Still the gripes of Apocalypse31 are valid, so YMMV.

The engine is nice. There are some oddities with the animations; Infantry movement looks weird, and some of the impact animations are wrong (they seem to be randomly used - even if the game shows a 'miss' animation, you can still get damage. vice versa)

I would LOVE to see more era's. Cold War? Yes, please. Even in the Panzer Corps engine.

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 01, 2015, 09:22:22 AMYMMV.

(Your Milage may Vary)

I agree, and I will say that I think Slitherine is slowly shifting their market. I feel like more of their games are focused on the strategy-lite crowd. Tablet/Phone gamers instead of a more serious crowd. This is just another drop in the bucket for the tablet-gamer crowd. I think most of my disappointment comes from false notions that I had from the pre-release advertising; mainly Cooperative Multiplayer and Modding.

I will continue to play Battle Academy 2 cooperative multiplayer - there's a development team that got it right.

WOW! $47 CDN... on sale! No time soon here....  :buck2:

Quote from: Barthheart on May 01, 2015, 09:30:11 AM
WOW! $47 CDN... on sale! No time soon here....  :buck2:

This game should be no more than $20 - especially with the lack of content that it offers.

Apoc...I am incredulous:  Are you in earnest when you say terrain plays no part in combat?  In a WWII game?  In the PTO?  :uglystupid2:

I am going to stealth into the Slitherine base in the middle of the night and delete all the PG code from their servers.  An intervention is needed...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Quote from: Cyrano on May 01, 2015, 09:36:31 AM
Apoc...I am incredulous:  Are you in earnest when you say terrain plays no part in combat?  In a WWII game?  In the PTO?  :uglystupid2:

I am going to stealth into the Slitherine base in the middle of the night and delete all the PG code from their servers.  An intervention is needed...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Strategy-Lite

oh dear was about to buy, now i might have to hold off

Apocalypse needs to get his facts straight. We appreciate critics but let's not lower ourselves to a hate campaign.

Terrain plays an important part in combat:
Each terrain type has a "cover" percentage (0 - 100). For example open terrain has 0% cover, villages 50% cover and cities 100% cover. Many units have 2 values for their ground based attack stats. For example when a tank with [6 - 2] anti-infantry attack engages an enemy infantry unit on open terrain, the combat calculation uses 6 (0% cover), if it attacks in a city it uses 2 (100%) and if the terrain is a village is uses 4 (50%, in the middle of the two values).

In addition each terrain type has a combat modifier for attacker and defender. This for example gives the defender advantages in jungle terrain and slows down combat in general on mountains.

We've heard more complaints about the game being way too hard than too easy, forcing us to lower the default difficulty level from III to II. Apocalypse is either a very good player or hasn't been playing past the tutorial and first campaign scenarios.

More extensive modding support is on our list as well, but was not a day-one priority for our first game.

Quote from: Adherbal on May 01, 2015, 10:00:12 AM
Apocalypse needs to get his facts straight. We appreciate critics but let's not lower ourselves to a hate campaign.

Or we could be honest with players before we release a game. TWO cooperative multiplayer scenarios? Thats just insulting, especially when you claim your game has a feature. Maybe if you understand how much of a sham it is, you'd understand why I'm so frustrated that I lost $40.

Quote from: Adherbal on May 01, 2015, 10:00:12 AM
Apocalypse is either a very good player or hasn't been playing past the tutorial and first campaign scenarios.

I'm 4 scenarios into the Allied Campaign, and up until now I could've won each mission without doing anything. I literally could've pressed the 'next turn' button enough times and won.

The amount of MP maps the game contains right now is certainly not overabundant, but we are planning to release more gradually in upcoming patches. Turning singleplayer scenarios into cooperative MP games is quite easy, certainly compared to the creation of completely new head-to-head maps.

In adition the in-game editor allows users to create their own scenarios. Erik on the Matrix forum has already his first go at it with the Java scenario (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3852654).

First impressions by the Historical Gamer

Quote from: Adherbal on May 01, 2015, 10:22:57 AM
The amount of MP maps the game contains right now is certainly not overabundant, but we are planning to release more gradually in upcoming patches. Turning singleplayer scenarios into cooperative MP games is quite easy, certainly compared to the creation of completely new head-to-head maps.

In adition the in-game editor allows users to create their own scenarios. Erik on the Matrix forum has already his first go at it with the Java scenario (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3852654).

But there's  no way to distribute scenarios, so unless the person has your scenario, you're out of luck.

Also, asking players to fill voids left by the developer is very weak

Quote from: Adherbal on May 01, 2015, 06:55:49 AM
The AI does a ton of simulations in the background to find out what its best options are. I talked to the AI programmer and he thinks the unit must've determined that your next turn's attacks would kill it no matter what. The best remaining move it could find is to try and cut supply or run away. Of course from a human POV that still isn't an obvious decision, as sitting still and hoping the opponent doesn't attack (for whatever reason) makes more sense.

That actually does make sense.

Don't normally like these "Lite" games - but this one is holding my attention.

I'm into this sort of B&B (Bier und Brezel) game, but it's a bit pricey. Maybe I can pay in Indonesian rupiahs.

I anticipate the developers will release a paid DLC to the fill the huge void in MP content.

This is typical Slitherine and their nieche marketing.

Take it easy Apoc, lets dial down the belligerence a notch. Game developers are people too! O0

Quote from: Swatter on May 02, 2015, 02:50:47 PM
Take it easy Apoc, lets dial down the belligerence a notch. Game developers are people too! O0

+1.

Adherbal said they are going to release more MP maps in upcoming patches. Frankly, I'm not worried as I will mostly play this game SP - maybe a few MP matches later, but I'd rather have a solid set of SP maps in preference to MP. As Adherbal said - "converting SP maps to MP is quite easy." With that in mind I don't see why you are getting so upset Apoc - as Adherbal is addressing what you are concerned about.

Quote from: Swatter on May 02, 2015, 02:50:47 PM
Take it easy Apoc, lets dial down the belligerence a notch. Game developers are people too! O0

Ditto. Some of us are actually enjoying the game.

A first patch is scheduled for some time next week. Among some bug fixes we're also adding a couple of new features and content. Among this the ability to filter the force list by category and at least 2 new cooperative MP maps. Admittedly these are direct conversions of SP scenarios but more original content will follow when things have calmed down a bit. Responding to all the feedback and forums is a full time job at the moment  :)

^That's a good thing!

Quote from: Boggit on May 02, 2015, 03:06:26 PMI don't see why you are getting so upset Apoc

It's pretty simple; I was looking forward to this game since its announcement in 2013, specifically some of the features that were advertised, such as ease of modding and cooperative multiplayer. Neither of these features were delivered and I paid $40 for a product that I wouldn't have bought had I known that these features weren't included.

Quote from: Swatter on May 02, 2015, 02:50:47 PM
Game developers are people too!

So are the people who buy their games, with money that they work hard for - and don't appreciated being lied to when it comes to game features.

Quotespecifically some of the features that were advertised, such as ease of modding

Perhaps it was poorly communicated somewere, but can you point me to where we said the game would be easily moddable? We've always said we think modding is very important and that we want to make the game as moddable as possible. But that actualy requires a substanional extra effort on the Unity3D engine. It does not allow importing external 3D models for example so we'll have to write our own readable txt format and scripts to bypass this. So this will take time and certainly was never a day 1 priority, so I doubt this was an "advertised feature" at any time.

I entered the games industry when Iain from Slitherine contacted me about the Napoleonic Total War 2 mod for RomeTW I worked on, and that got the ball rolling. In fact the majority of the people who worked on the game have been or still are involved in modding.

Quote from: Adherbal on May 02, 2015, 06:00:16 PM
Perhaps it was poorly communicated somewere

Perhaps it was, then.

Quote from: Adherbal on May 02, 2015, 06:00:16 PM
I entered the games industry when Iain from Slitherine contacted me about the Napoleonic Total War 2 mod for RomeTW I worked on, and that got the ball rolling. In fact the majority of the people who worked on the game have been or still are involved in modding.

Congratulations on the game. Best of luck.

Small but significant step forward for modding:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=264&t=64251#p546321

You can now add new nations. "Unlocking" more and more textures for modding should now be pretty straightforward.

Main challenge remaining now is unit 3D models. Then we can have mods with new nations, units and sound effects.

^That sounds like an entry point to mods for the Chinese, Soviets, Australians...running the gamut of the entire Pacific War from the 1930s on...

I think it will turn out well.

Adherbal is at least engaging with the community, openly facing any criticism, and letting us know how he will address those criticsms. As it's his first independent game I think we should cut him some slack. Sure let him know what concerns you, as Apoc has done, but give him the chance to respond before ripping his head off. You may find Adherbal exceeds your expectations.

I hope Gus is right about mods for the Chinese, Soviets and Aussies. BTW, adding the rest of the Commonwealth - British, Indians, Dutch would be good too - the Burma, Imphal/Kohima battles and beyond are quite interesting. Bill Slim's final battle in Burma was just outstanding - virtually annihilating the Japanese armies.

The Soviets are of less interest to me - apart from the Nomonhan battle, they are pretty much out of it for most of the war. In 1945 they opportunistically attacked with overwhelming forces and were only engaged for less than a month! (9th August - 2nd September 1945). I'm not sure they'd be that much of a challenge to play.

@Adherbal

You mentioned Erik Rutins had done a Java Sea scenario - do you have a link, or can I download it through the game like with Battle Academy, Pike and Shot etc?

Thanks. :)

I really, really, really would love to see other eras with this engine. Korea and Vietnam would be awesome. I'd love to see carriers and their planes at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin supporting troops over Vietnam.

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 03, 2015, 11:31:23 AM
I really, really, really would love to see other eras with this engine. Korea and Vietnam would be awesome. I'd love to see carriers and their planes at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin supporting troops over Vietnam.

I was thinking along the same lines! There is a lot of potential with this game engine. A modern-day People's General type of game would also be a must-buy for me.

All right, I'll bite...as if I need another game...

For those having a good time, how is this NOT PanzerCorps with PTO skin?

Or is it and you just like PC with a PTO skin?

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Quote from: Boggit on May 03, 2015, 10:42:34 AM
@Adherbal

You mentioned Erik Rutins had done a Java Sea scenario - do you have a link, or can I download it through the game like with Battle Academy, Pike and Shot etc?

Thanks. :)

There is no way to currently distribute player-made scenarios, which is very unfortunate because it will lessen the likelyhood of players finding/downloading custom content. I'm not sure the feasibility of adding an in-game downloader but I dont ever see that happening with a Slitherine game - or at least any time soon.

Erik posted his scenarios on the Slitherine forums
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=374&t=64204

Quote from: Steelgrave on May 03, 2015, 11:59:04 AM

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 03, 2015, 11:31:23 AM
I really, really, really would love to see other eras with this engine. Korea and Vietnam would be awesome. I'd love to see carriers and their planes at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin supporting troops over Vietnam.

I was thinking along the same lines! There is a lot of potential with this game engine. A modern-day People's General type of game would also be a must-buy for me.

Add me to the list! O0

Quote from: Apocalypse 31 on May 03, 2015, 12:39:25 PM

Quote from: Boggit on May 03, 2015, 10:42:34 AM
@Adherbal

You mentioned Erik Rutins had done a Java Sea scenario - do you have a link, or can I download it through the game like with Battle Academy, Pike and Shot etc?

Thanks. :)

There is no way to currently distribute player-made scenarios, which is very unfortunate because it will lessen the likelyhood of players finding/downloading custom content. I'm not sure the feasibility of adding an in-game downloader but I dont ever see that happening with a Slitherine game - or at least any time soon.

Erik posted his scenarios on the Slitherine forums
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=374&t=64204

A good point. Adherbal?

@Apoc - Thanks for posting the link. O0

Technically a content sharing system isn't too hard to do. To do it properly however it would probably need a rating system, sorting & filtering, previews etc. Since Slitherine keeps expanding their PBEM system this seems like a logical addition for them to handle.

Doesn't Steam Workshop do things like that though? Perhaps we can look into that.

In related news: The basic model importing is done. After next week's patch modders will be able to add new unit models.

A Dien Bien Phu mod would be epic.

Quote from: Gusington on May 03, 2015, 03:18:29 PM
A Dien Bien Phu mod would be epic.

It would! O0 In the meantime check out JTS' Squad Battles Dien Bien Phu, which deals precisely with it.

Just to note, BA, BA2, Pike&Shot, and Hell all have integrated mod downloading systems.  But as Ad has said, Unity can present challenges for modding integration.

We still see lots of mod usage even for those mods which, for one reason or another, are not on the integrated download system or are for games without them.

Cheers

Pip

Oh, I thought the BA system was only for "approved" content? Need to look into that then (if that system is available for other devs as well).

Gone quiet in here, anyone still playing?

Quote from: Boggit on May 03, 2015, 03:34:32 PM

Quote from: Gusington on May 03, 2015, 03:18:29 PM
A Dien Bien Phu mod would be epic.

It would! O0 In the meantime check out JTS' Squad Battles Dien Bien Phu, which deals precisely with it.

Wait a second...you mean JTS squad battles Dien Bien Phu doesn't cover the Battle of Waterloo?  :coolsmiley:

Can someone give me some advice on this?  This game *looks* appealing, but I have become accustomed to fights like in CM/CM2 where range, spotting and penetration are modeled, so I am wary of combat that requires chess-like adjacency and is modeled closer to "hit points".  Am I likely to be disappointed, or are the tactics inherent to the game going to win me over?
I respect that none of you are in my head (I think) and I appreciate any thoughts.  Also, I have never played PG, PCorps or any of the BA games, fwiw.

Thanks.

Quote from: Freyland on May 09, 2015, 04:00:32 PM
Can someone give me some advice on this?  This game *looks* appealing, but I have become accustomed to fights like in CM/CM2 where range, spotting and penetration are modeled, so I am wary of combat that requires chess-like adjacency and is modeled closer to "hit points".  Am I likely to be disappointed, or are the tactics inherent to the game going to win me over?
I respect that none of you are in my head (I think) and I appreciate any thoughts.  Also, I have never played PG, PCorps or any of the BA games, fwiw.

Thanks.

Completely different games. This is more along the lines of Panzer General / Panzer Corps. Closer to operational level, than tactical. Also, Battle Academy is a Tactical level game.

However, at every echelon, the tactics are still the same, and OOBP doesn't stray. You are awarded for out-flanking units, and prepping your target with indirect fires.

QuoteCan someone give me some advice on this?

Have you watched some of the playthrough footage on Youtube? It takes a bit more time than reading a text summary but it might give you a better impression with live gameplay "examples".

I have personally been following the series of The Historical Gamer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGbgeks2hIE), who tries to provide some historical context of the missions as well.

Assuming it follows in the PZ/PC mold, this would definitely be more of an abstracted "beer & pretzels" operational-level game than a detailed, highly realistic tactical simulation.  If you've never played any of the clones in the series, you can find some fun puzzles to solve.

There's a demo out for Panzer Corps to give you a feel for what the game play might be like, on an abstract level, at least...  Other posts in this thread talk about how this game varies from PC...

Quote from: Freyland on May 09, 2015, 04:00:32 PM
Can someone give me some advice on this?  This game *looks* appealing, but I have become accustomed to fights like in CM/CM2 where range, spotting and penetration are modeled, so I am wary of combat that requires chess-like adjacency and is modeled closer to "hit points".  Am I likely to be disappointed, or are the tactics inherent to the game going to win me over?
I respect that none of you are in my head (I think) and I appreciate any thoughts.  Also, I have never played PG, PCorps or any of the BA games, fwiw.

Thanks.

Well , I hated Panzer Corps. This game has something else. There is simply more nuance to it and a lot more realistic "feel". Its not a grognards game but its not panzer corps either. Some of the large scenarios posted at siltherine site are huge and excellent. As I say - not a PCorps fan - but I am of this one. Don't regret my purchase one bit.

Thanks for the input, All.  I agree that watching videos can be helpful, but with extremely limited gaming time, I am hard pressed to spend that watching someone else have fun!  Money is certainly not superfluous, but time is exquisitely rare.  A demo would be lovely.

Patch Released

http://steamcommunity.com/games/312450/announcements/detail/178235170020427307

QuoteOrder of Battle Pcific Patch V.1.6.7
• MP: 2vAI Java and 2vAI Bataan coop maps added
• Gameplay: All torpedo bombers can now switch to bombs
• Gameplay: Experience gain from combat increased
• Specialisation: British Pacific Fleet fixed and adds 2 aircraft on top of the naval units
• Fix: Various unit stats fixed
• Fix: Dutch Overvalswagen APC no longer causes framerate drop on Java scenario
• Fix: Various issues with AI freezing fixed
• Fix: Scenario restart now correctly resets campaign events
• MP: PBEM Lobby, disappearing game names fixed
• UI: Force List, unit category filters added
• UI: Force List sorted by unit nation > category > type
• UI: Empty hexes can be selected to inspect terrain type
• UI: Hex location names visible on map and/or UI
• UI: Checkbox to disable AI spinning animation in options menu
• UI: For transport moves, the potential combat prognosis is displayed for the transport type, not the current unit type
• Strategic Map: Left-click on map moves the camera to that location.
• Scenarios: Philippine Sea, Coral Sea (Japan) and Midway (USA) objectives fixed/improved
• AI: Offensive AI teams now attempt to clear mines
• Modding: Mod launcher, improved mod folder support, 3D model importing

Yep Steam dl'd it for my machine.

I picked this up this week and I am really enjoying the heck out of it  :D

Which campaign are you playing?

If you are asking me, then it's the Allied side.  :coolsmiley:

I'm playing as the Japanese. Very happy with this release so far!

Having a difficult time deciding which to play first...

Quote from: Gusington on May 15, 2015, 08:22:48 PM
Having a difficult time deciding which to play first...

My instinct was to start with the Japanese, but I decided to do the Allies first instead. It's quite fun, the defensive battles in the Philippines. I haven't gotten that far and already put five or six hours into it.

^I want to start as the Japanese also - other than in TW games I haven't ever played as the Japanese.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it. They have taken the Panzer Corp model and refined it very well to reflect battles in the Pacific, a sadly under-represented gaming arena. Ground combat, while still utilizing the abstract model that defines Panzer Corp, moves and flows in a realistic manner for a campaign. Little touches, such as watching your artillery arc over your units to land on enemy positions, adds a nice feel. Your opponent will sometimes launch a seemingly hopeless attack in order to try and cut your supply lines, but just as often will retreat to a better location when overrun appears imminent.

The naval aspect I'm not as sure of yet. Naval warfare is very difficult to model on any game which is not naval specific. Ship vs. ship felt kind of generic to me, yet the results were realistic in the end while being far from inevitable. Shore bombardment can be an important aspect of your strategy. Watching the Yamato open up on a defensive position sends thrills down your leg that Chris Matthews can relate to. For a non-WitP level naval game, I think they have done a good job while maintaining play-ability.

OB Pacific is from the Panzer Corp family of games, so if you're not a fan of PC you won't enjoy this. However, if you are a fan, this game will likely burn up hours of your free time actually playing it rather than learning the rules. My bottom line is am I enjoying myself and did I get my money's worth? To both of these questions I can only say "yes" with an emphasis.

Just played the Coral Sea scenario in my Allies campaign. Had to cut it short as I have to get ready for tonight, but all in all it was a slugfest. I gutted the Japanese fleet including all three of their carriers, but they sank a few of my DDs and damaged the hell out of most of the rest of my fleet. I just managed to keep their Port Moresby invasion force at bay; I purchased and deployed a second CA to help cover that area, and I'm glad I did, otherwise they probably would have just barely eked a victory out there and cleared the way for their transports.

I just sank their third carrier and have two CAs and three DDs left to deal with. They're going to do some damage but all in all, I've pretty much slapped them down.

I really enjoy the pop-ups in-game that announce events, such as the 'devastating blow' I've dealt the IJN by sinking all their carriers.  ;D

^Steelie and BC have settled it for me...I'll be firing this up imminently (if that's a word)...in a couple of days. Looking forward to it!!

Quote from: Gusington on May 16, 2015, 04:38:26 PM
^Steelie and BC have settled it for me...I'll be firing this up imminently (if that's a word)...in a couple of days. Looking forward to it!!

Glad to be of service, Gus  O0

Quote from: Steelgrave on May 16, 2015, 04:21:46 PM
OB Pacific is from the Panzer Corp family of games,

It's techincally not Panzer Corps.  I think the engine is different.  But the basic rules and feel are the same.  It is what the next gen Panzer Corps should be.

Not a bad little beer & pretzels game. Given how little there is covering the Pacific Theatre (short of WitP:AE) it's worth playing. I wish there were some good choice that weren't either on the light end like this or "give up your career & family to play"
like WiTP:AE, but this is fun.

Cyrano - looks like the same engine more or less as Commander: The Great War. Smaller scale though, more Grand Tactical/Operational than Strategic.

Wait...I just realized I have Tiller's Campaign Series: Rising Sun and have never played it...well, there's tomorrow's gaming sewn up!

Quote from: panzerde on May 16, 2015, 09:35:48 PM
Wait...I just realized I have Tiller's Campaign Series: Rising Sun and have never played it...well, there's tomorrow's gaming sewn up!

That has all the PTO scenarios you can dream of.

I will only hijack briefly to say that this is a series that REALLY, REALLY, REALLY deserves an update.

On this prompting, I went back and pounded through a few scenarios...I had forgotten that it let you GENERATE scenarios.  A different time for Dr. T., I suppose.

The graphics are in desperate need of a fix -- I can't bear the 3D stuff anymore and the 2D is too small -- but my goodness the range of scenarios, and the mechanics hold up reasonably well.

Oh, and this was also a time when Talonsoft apparently had money to license soundtracks...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Quote from: Cyrano on May 17, 2015, 10:56:00 AM
I will only hijack briefly to say that this is a series that REALLY, REALLY, REALLY deserves an update.

On this prompting, I went back and pounded through a few scenarios...I had forgotten that it let you GENERATE scenarios.  A different time for Dr. T., I suppose.

The graphics are in desperate need of a fix -- I can't bear the 3D stuff anymore and the 2D is too small -- but my goodness the range of scenarios, and the mechanics hold up reasonably well.

Did you grab the recent updates from the Matrix forum? There's a team actively doing updates. They're supposed to be releasing an Arab-Israeli Wars game (not just a re-tread of the old Talonsoft game) soon.

There's also a lot of scenarios Rising Sun at theblitz.org

I'd start a separate thread at this point, but, hey, Doug...thanks...wow...

It's like going home again.

See you fellow in Burma...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Quote from: panzerde on May 17, 2015, 11:13:02 AM

Quote from: Cyrano on May 17, 2015, 10:56:00 AM
I will only hijack briefly to say that this is a series that REALLY, REALLY, REALLY deserves an update.

On this prompting, I went back and pounded through a few scenarios...I had forgotten that it let you GENERATE scenarios.  A different time for Dr. T., I suppose.

The graphics are in desperate need of a fix -- I can't bear the 3D stuff anymore and the 2D is too small -- but my goodness the range of scenarios, and the mechanics hold up reasonably well.

Did you grab the recent updates from the Matrix forum? There's a team actively doing updates. They're supposed to be releasing an Arab-Israeli Wars game (not just a re-tread of the old Talonsoft game) soon.

It's generally a modern warfare campaign series. Also includes vietnam.  Wonder what happened to it.

If one follows the forum threads that Doug refers to, it sounds like the Arab-Israeli iteration is very much in the works.  There's even a few screenshots of the re-worked icons -- hint: LARGER -- that I'd very much like to see ported to the CS.

I honestly forgot how good this series was...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

Finally got to start playing today - worked through the first two land based scenarios. It is just like PG, which I don't mind at all, and very polished. Unit movement and action is satisfying like Steelie says above, and I enjoyed the urban combat too. The tutorials were even fun...the engine looks and operates very well. Can't wait to start a Japanese campaign.

Had a perfectly good weekend of gaming kinda sorta ruined by a bug in Order of Battle - Pacific. Playing as the Japanese I had just completed the second mission of the campaign, taking most of the Philippenes, when the Burma campaign event appeared and froze the game. I can't advance. Anyone experience this? I really like the game and to have it marred by this will be...unpleasant  >:(

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.akamai.steamusercontent.com%2Fugc%2F531768892757019647%2F4EF9D1FAB0A48B6065CFB5186C83155A1BBEBDFD%2F&hash=e7d3eaefda75bd96134f1b8ee5e07fbb4baa5592)

I moved past that scenario with no problems, Gus. Sorry you are having issues.

Yeah, Gus, that's the exact same bug and screen I get. I can't continue past that.

It was just reported on Slitherine's forum today, actually:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=264&t=65083&sid=090ed3553e01a987915de614f04df4ea

Hopefully there will be an answer/fix, because this is ridiculous.

Quote from: Banzai_Cat on May 31, 2015, 06:54:51 PM
Yeah, Gus, that's the exact same bug and screen I get. I can't continue past that.

It was just reported on Slitherine's forum today, actually:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=264&t=65083&sid=090ed3553e01a987915de614f04df4ea

Hopefully there will be an answer/fix, because this is ridiculous.

Is the missing folder just a Steam issue?

^ Dunno. Could try a re-install I suppose, but I'll just wait until Slitherine or someone announces a fix.

Thanks BC. Guess we have to wait now. Hope the wait isn't too long...was really getting into it :(

In that thread someone linked to another thread that links to this: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=372&t=64685

QuoteIn patch 1.6.7 we've added some new historical events in the campaign. The Japanese campaign is missing 2 images for these however, which can cause an unclosable event popup.

To solve this problem, place these two images in the Japanese campaign folder (right click > save as ...):

Steam:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Order of Battle Pacific\Order of Battle - Pacific_Data\Resources\Campaign\1Japan1941

or

Slitherine:
C:\Slitherine\Order of Battle Pacific\Order of Battle - Pacific_Data\Resources\Campaign\1Japan1941

ATTACHMENTS
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slitherine.com%2Fforum%2Fdownload%2Ffile.php%3Fid%3D14991&hash=17612df44d1d58ed65fe3b50e0280feb5e3064e7)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/download/file.php?id=14991 (170.22 KiB)

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slitherine.com%2Fforum%2Fdownload%2Ffile.php%3Fid%3D14990&hash=af8ff1cf2a4353be2e047a216edf72bd493588da)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/download/file.php?id=14990 (279.03 KiB)

So just D/L those two images into your appropriate game folders and you should be ok.

Cool, thanks Stagger. Looks like that fixed it.  O0

Nice, thanks 'Wing! Will do that tonight.

Three Moves Ahead looks over Order of Battle: Pacific on their podcast this week.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/order-of-battle-pacific

It seems Troy and Rob are fans, and Bruce and Tom are not so much.

Grogheads gets a mention on the podcast, twice!!

'Wing's fix worked for me too  8) This game gets better as I progress, btw.

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.akamai.steamusercontent.com%2Fugc%2F531769340414925515%2F1E6253088CB8361750C252AC6C02E54B92641C21%2F&hash=e7eb11e143fd9b7939ee4a2ed059f0ed2dc85f88)

Is this game pretty complex or is it like Panzer general?

Not complex at all, it's like PG.

Quote from: Gusington on June 02, 2015, 06:39:48 AM
Not complex at all, it's like PG.

Actually a step above PG

Quote from: jomni on June 02, 2015, 07:41:42 AM

Quote from: Gusington on June 02, 2015, 06:39:48 AM
Not complex at all, it's like PG.

Actually a step above PG

How so Jomni?

Logistics, fatigue

True. It's well put together too, despite that one error I had with the missing images.

Loin-Moistening?

The game gives you side mission objectives that can affect the outcome of your game down the road.

Also, if you perform well in one instance, it will have lasting effects down that same road. For example, as the Japanese I sank every U.S. battleship in the first Pearl Harbor scenario, so the game told me the U.S. would have trouble reacting for many months to come. On the other side of the same coin, in my first ever campaign game I also played the Japanese and didn't know what I was doing, and suffered a lot of aircraft losses; this had an effect on my aircrew's performance in later battles as my pilots would be of worse quality.

^Yep. Similarly you get to carry 'core troops' over between scenarios. They gain experience and evolve into veteran troops. There are also special abilities, like banzai charges. Lots of cool little details.

And dead people, wrecks, craters are left in the battlefield.

Maybe this is standard in this type of game, but what disappointed me is that in my Allied campaign I won the first few scenarios, but I screwed up Coral Sea and lost and the campaign ended.  I figured that if I lost a scenario the war would continue but just be harder. 

I thought the same...it is a little disappointing.

I believe this is something they need to fix in these games; do or die is just so pah!!!

Sometimes PG games have branching paths for losses on the campaigns. But usually not many.

Most Panzer General games, even Panzer Corps, have more aspects to the game than PG did. (And in the case of Unity of Command, sometimes less is more.) Heck, PG2 and 3 had more gameplay details!

From what I've heard, the Groggiest game that's still identifiably Panzer General is Matrix's remake/update of an Operation Barbarossa game, Germany At War: Barbarossa 1941 (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/472/details/Germany.at.War:.Barbarossa.1941). Which has a demo, btw.

Jim Cobb's review here on the mythical front page (http://grogheads.com/?p=2458).

People down at Slitherine forums are saying that the Japanese defensive perks, though historical, are of no use.  Because to win the campaign, you take a non-historical branch and is always on the offensive.

I'm noticing that now...a lot of suicide charges needed to get a victory in the Bataan scenario of the Japanese campaign. I hope they produce more specific scenarios/campaigns.

I played through the Bataan scenario as the Japanese and didn't have a problem. I don't think suicide charges have even been offered as an option yet. Have you played through to the end of the war?

No - I played to the end of Bataan and got beat with one city left to take as the Japanese - that hurt. Haven't gone back yet.

I went ahead and bought the game and unfortunately I am not pleased.

It has many components to be a good game, but I really think scenario design is poor and overly scripted. I started the Japan campaign and played through the ground invasion of Java scenario, let me just list some sour points in my mind:

- I started over every scenario  multiple times. This is mostly because the scenarios are highly scripted and are meant to hit you artificially where you will likely be weak. When scenario designers do their job well, it just feels right. It feels fair. Not so in this game. The scenarios are far too contrived and instead of fighting an AI, you are fighting pre-determined scripts where the designer knows way more than you. You should feel like your playing a game, not fighting the scenario designer.

- During the ground battle of Java, when you cross a certain point of the HUGE map with your relatively small force, you are way over extended by design of the map. So what does the scenario designer do, he unleashes a massive armored counter attack that darts right through your supply lines with a force that just poofs in from thin air. I am 32 turns into the game (and the primary victory condition where you kill trucks is sort of dumb) and my force is spread out over this huge map- and the scenario designers scripts an event like that! These are long, long games. You don't script stuff like that at the end and make you replay the entire scenario over again just to take into account a scripted trigger at the end.

The scenario designs are just too cute by half. I have rarely played a game where I dislike the scenarios, but like the system overall. I think the naval part of the game is rather blah with no real differences between the navies. What really made the forces (USN and IJN) different in real life just isn't modeled into the game. Japanese torpedoes are just as good as the American. There is no night-time gunnery advantage for the Japanese modeled into the game. In the end, the forces are the same. Its not a game breaker, though.

What I can't live with is sub par scenario design. I simply will not play a game where the designer is so damned unpredictable. I am not investing an evening into a scenario to have scripted events ruin it at the very end. You should use scripted events to enhance the experience, not be the experience. If you hit scripting too hard, the scenarios have zero replay value.

I know I am being very hard, but I am very disappointed.

<Self edited to tone down the late night rantishness>

^Good review. I do agree that the scenarios are too scripted, and I don't like that the loss of one mission stops players cold.

Still - I will come back to the game, and hopefully by then some changes will be made.

Custom battles.  The list looks impressive.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=374&t=64991url

New expansion coming January 28 - Order of Battle: Morning Sun, covers the war in China and starts in 1937:

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/594/details/Order.of.Battle.-.Morning.Sun?utm_source=Matrix+Games+Master&utm_campaign=72feeb5a88-Matrix+Games+End+of+Sale_01_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2dfdfd653-72feeb5a88-87961029

No thanks.

Just uninstalled this one. Failed promises from the developer, lack of content, and scenarios that are scripted to the tee.

Scripted and unfair to the human player scenarios?  Promptly removed this game from my Steam wishlist. 

A shame. It had great promise.

I was one of the beta testers for the game but my experiences did not cause me to buy the finished game. Too bad since the game could have been a nice beer and pretzels pacific war romp.

I was in beta too and I was very concerned. I think the developers wanted to try something just a little different than "Panzer Korps in the Pacific", but that's exactly what I wanted (and many others). I remember the amphibious scenarios in PC and wanted more of that! I believe they tried to pivot a bit during development to more accommodate players like me and core forces played a larger role in the released product. In the end, I think the major failings were the scenario design and lack of real difference between the combatants. The scenarios didn't feel historical and were scripted heavily. They shouldn't have been trying to portray individual battles (which resulted in heavy scripting) and focused on campaigns.

I would like to see a sequel with better, more flexible scenario design.

Scripting is definitely one of the major issues here.

I thought it was a mildly fun game for a few hours of amusement, but it has absolutely nothing to do with WWII or the Pacific Theater other than having the right chrome. It didn't hold my interest enough to get to the end of the tutorials. It did sell me on buying JTS Midway though, as well as the PTO Squad Battles games.


Probably not what the developers and Matrix intended...

I am so glad I read these comments before buying this.  It looked so good to be so bad.  Saved me money, and more importantly time.
O0

Quote from: panzerde on January 12, 2016, 08:21:09 PM
I thought it was a mildly fun game for a few hours of amusement, but it has absolutely nothing to do with WWII or the Pacific Theater other than having the right chrome. It didn't hold my interest enough to get to the end of the tutorials. It did sell me on buying JTS Midway though, as well as the PTO Squad Battles games.


Probably not what the developers and Matrix intended...

Don't mind me asking, but do you like JTS Midway? I have always wanted a JTS naval game, but I heard they can't be played PBEM. I am thinking more for solo gaming.

JTS Midway is a continuous time game making PBEM all but impossible.

It's a basic game from an appearances perspective, but we've had LAN games of the big battle with 5-8 players and it's a remarkable experience.  Nothing quite like hearing the folks in the other room giggling a few moments before the IJN shows up where you didn't expect it.

It's always felt to me like a 2D Silent Hunter in that you're interspersing planning and preparation in something approaching real time with stretches of much accelerated time as the two sides feel about the Pacific in search of each other.

If you look around on E-bay and the like you should be able to find it fairly cheaply too...

Quote from: airboy on January 12, 2016, 09:16:29 PM
I am so glad I read these comments before buying this.  It looked so good to be so bad.  Saved me money, and more importantly time.
O0

+1

I've been on the verge of getting it recently but no longer.

Quote from: Wolfe1759 on January 13, 2016, 01:23:23 PM

Quote from: airboy on January 12, 2016, 09:16:29 PM
I am so glad I read these comments before buying this.  It looked so good to be so bad.  Saved me money, and more importantly time.
O0

+1

I've been on the verge of getting it recently but no longer.

+2

One of the teasers had the coolest boardgame 2D look in them. I've been basically waiting for it to be implemented before jumping in...

QuoteThe engine was created to support both a full 3D and "boardgame style" 2D mode from day one. However these visuals still require a lot of extra work - particularly creating the 450+ unit icons in this "drawn" style. It may not be available in the initial release, but then definitely shortly after in a first patch. We are well aware there is a strong fanbase for this

I've seen no mention of it though after the sreenshot was posted (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3606748) so I guess it was put on to backburner then?

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi61.tinypic.com%2F346xgdj.jpg&hash=7875c8c712311ee251785981d1a161bd52d6d33e)

That boardgame style is gorgeous. Too bad it hasn't made it in.

Wow, that's a damn shame they didn't implement that. Just having that view might have been enough to make me overlook some of the other issues.

Quote from: Richie61 on January 12, 2016, 11:01:19 PM

Quote from: panzerde on January 12, 2016, 08:21:09 PM
I thought it was a mildly fun game for a few hours of amusement, but it has absolutely nothing to do with WWII or the Pacific Theater other than having the right chrome. It didn't hold my interest enough to get to the end of the tutorials. It did sell me on buying JTS Midway though, as well as the PTO Squad Battles games.


Probably not what the developers and Matrix intended...

Don't mind me asking, but do you like JTS Midway? I have always wanted a JTS naval game, but I heard they can't be played PBEM. I am thinking more for solo gaming.

Jim's answer is pretty much my response, too. I enjoyed playing it solo and felt like it was a pretty detailed examination of WWII carrier ops. It has a bit of a learning curve, there are some UI issues, and it's a little quirky about some aspects of flight ops, but it's a good game. More complicated than something like Carriers at War, but not as elegant in execution as the NWS Steam & Iron games - which admittedly don't handle air power at all.

Thanks for the comments on JTS Naval sims. I am looking for solo games. I have Carriers At War and never played it. Maybe I should start there first  :)

I have Order of Battle and I thought it was ok. No Pacific PC, but fun to play. I liked the carrier operations the best. I did lose interest after a few weeks of playing it, but I do that a lot with other games  ;D

Burma expansion.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=78311

QuoteWith the upcoming release of Burma Road DLC for Order of Battle, we wanted to take a moment to fill you in on what's been developed by The Artistocrats in association with Demon Wings Interactive.

Order of Battle is returning to the war against Japan in the region of Southeast Asia. Many battles were across the Malaya Peninsula, India, and of course Burma as the Japanese sought to acquire war materiel such as oil and rubber while the British and Allied forces stood against them.

Unlike the island hopping campaign of the United States across the Pacific, the Southeast Asian conflict was coloured primarily by ground warfare. Such warfare was markedly different from the land war of Europe and Afrika as dense jungles were ever present and presented a major obstacle for both sides. That's not to say the entire campaign consists of skulking through the jungles of Burma, battles such as the action at Imphal in 1944 were sizeable affairs fought with many armoured units engaged in major fighting.

One very important campaign tenant is the concept of presenting degrees of success in almost every battle. Because of the nature of a game like this, where a Pyrrhic victory is as good as a defeat since it effective ends your ability to continue a campaign, we've taken extra measures to help lessen the seriousness of such a situation.

These degrees of success are very important and very prominent throughout the campaign, and to explain them succinctly, they are bonus objectives that reward special units, commanders, resources, and specialization points are very challenging to acquire, especially for a player trying to acquire every single one of them, while primary mission objectives that continue the campaign progression are more accessible to complete. It's up to the player to find the difficulty level that suits them best, and then within that difficulty level, they can still experience many degrees of success ranging from simple scenario finishing or true scenario domination with all bonus objectives fulfilled.

On the other hand, if the player is struggling they might want to hold their forces back from full committal for a scenario or two, focusing only on the minimum objectives required and not over-extending their forces in an attempt to grab all the glory. Then once they are back to strength, they can start hunting for those extra difficult bonus objectives once more in the remaining scenarios!

Not your typical "beat the clock" Panzer General?

This is really interesting.  I've not bought Kriegsmarine - but I have purchased and played through everything else except the Japanese Pacific main campaign.  All of the other releases have been excellent.

I'm not sure what is so "new" about this approach. The original PG games also had non-VH towns and villages you could capture, OOB also always had secondary objectives.

There are still things that you have to accomplish to win. Flexible victory levels have also been available since the original OOB in the sense that the final result did not always just depend on capturing all VH's, but also on meeting other requirements like destroying a certain number of units.

I haven't bought Kriegsmarine as it received poor reviews, mostly because the naval combat system still doesn't make much sense. I'll probably buy the Burma DLC at some point.

As an aside, it would also be nice if they finally manage to optimize the way the game runs, as it's rather sluggish compared to Panzer Corps.

Quote from: jomni on July 12, 2017, 06:52:38 PM
Not your typical "beat the clock" Panzer General?

I uninstalled this a few months back after the Blitzkrieg module was released.

I just couldn't do it anymore. The scenarios were just awful - rather, the win/lose conditions were awful.

I think my final straw was the German Dunkirk mission where I'm was playing whack-a-mole against French units in my rear area while simultaneously trying to beat the clock to locate and destroy EVERY British unit on the map. NEVERMIND ACTUALLY CAPTURING DUNKIRK! The win conditions were just really gamey - which I found that to be the case with every scenario.

This is a case where scenario design can just kill a game, and for me, it has.

I've only played the very first campaign and didn't go back exactly for the reasons that Apocalypse posts above. I was hoping that things would change but it sounds like they are exactly the same.

The demo scenarios I played no longer featured gradations of victory based on the extent by which you "beat the clock".  I assumed that was a change they made to most/all of the scenarios.  I enjoyed it.  Giving me the freedom to focus on the stretch objectives that I wanted to gave me more opportunity to role-play and also eliminated the silly dynamic that amounted to "play it two or three times to figure out the puzzle and then play it two or three times more to get the right rolls on the first turn of play".

Quote from: panzerde on January 13, 2016, 06:13:48 PM

Quote from: Richie61 on January 12, 2016, 11:01:19 PM

Quote from: panzerde on January 12, 2016, 08:21:09 PM
I thought it was a mildly fun game for a few hours of amusement, but it has absolutely nothing to do with WWII or the Pacific Theater other than having the right chrome. It didn't hold my interest enough to get to the end of the tutorials. It did sell me on buying JTS Midway though, as well as the PTO Squad Battles games.


Probably not what the developers and Matrix intended...

Don't mind me asking, but do you like JTS Midway? I have always wanted a JTS naval game, but I heard they can't be played PBEM. I am thinking more for solo gaming.

Jim's answer is pretty much my response, too. I enjoyed playing it solo and felt like it was a pretty detailed examination of WWII carrier ops. It has a bit of a learning curve, there are some UI issues, and it's a little quirky about some aspects of flight ops, but it's a good game. More complicated than something like Carriers at War, but not as elegant in execution as the NWS Steam & Iron games - which admittedly don't handle air power at all.

FWIW, Fredrik Wallin was talking about developing RTW2, which he thought will have carrier ops and land based aircraft in it. He did mention this a long while back and I don't know if this is still his current thinking.

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on July 13, 2017, 04:37:36 PM
The demo scenarios I played no longer featured gradations of victory based on the extent by which you "beat the clock".  I assumed that was a change they made to most/all of the scenarios.  I enjoyed it.  Giving me the freedom to focus on the stretch objectives that I wanted to gave me more opportunity to role-play and also eliminated the silly dynamic that amounted to "play it two or three times to figure out the puzzle and then play it two or three times more to get the right rolls on the first turn of play".

I agree with you. I'm no fan of tight beat the clock victory conditions. Sometimes it's relevant, but mostly it means you are making hasty attacks just to manage the schedule rather than win the battle with the minimum loss of pixel life.

Quote from: Boggit on July 15, 2017, 06:12:46 PM

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on July 13, 2017, 04:37:36 PM
The demo scenarios I played no longer featured gradations of victory based on the extent by which you "beat the clock".  I assumed that was a change they made to most/all of the scenarios.  I enjoyed it.  Giving me the freedom to focus on the stretch objectives that I wanted to gave me more opportunity to role-play and also eliminated the silly dynamic that amounted to "play it two or three times to figure out the puzzle and then play it two or three times more to get the right rolls on the first turn of play".

I agree with you. I'm no fan of tight beat the clock victory conditions. Sometimes it's relevant, but mostly it means you are making hasty attacks just to manage the schedule rather than win the battle with the minimum loss of pixel life.

There have not been any severe "beat the clock" conditions in any Order of Battle game I've played.  They abound in Panzer Corps.

Quote from: airboy on July 15, 2017, 06:24:00 PM

Quote from: Boggit on July 15, 2017, 06:12:46 PM

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on July 13, 2017, 04:37:36 PM
The demo scenarios I played no longer featured gradations of victory based on the extent by which you "beat the clock".  I assumed that was a change they made to most/all of the scenarios.  I enjoyed it.  Giving me the freedom to focus on the stretch objectives that I wanted to gave me more opportunity to role-play and also eliminated the silly dynamic that amounted to "play it two or three times to figure out the puzzle and then play it two or three times more to get the right rolls on the first turn of play".

I agree with you. I'm no fan of tight beat the clock victory conditions. Sometimes it's relevant, but mostly it means you are making hasty attacks just to manage the schedule rather than win the battle with the minimum loss of pixel life.

There have not been any severe "beat the clock" conditions in any Order of Battle game I've played.  They abound in Panzer Corps.

I was speaking more generally about the idea of tight beat the clock victory conditions. I agree they are pretty loose in OOB games, which is good.

Look at this. Quite a creative scenario.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=264&t=78427&p=668443#p668443

Quote from: jomni on July 19, 2017, 08:49:30 AM
Look at this. Quite a creative scenario.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=264&t=78427&p=668443#p668443

Eh. I'm not sold yet....not even close.

1. How is this NOT beat the clock?
2. What is this scenario trying to do? I'm "attacking" units but not killing them? Using tanks to attack protesters, but uh...not violently? Engine not designed for something like that.
3. The objectives are exactly the same as every other scenario - kill clear baddies, take objectives, beat the clock....boring and not evolutionary or whatever Slitherine is calling this latest DLC.

Edit. I'm not completely sure why this game irritates me so much - I think it may be because it literally strives to do nothing different than Panzer General / Panzer Corps, but with much worse scenario design.

Order of Battle: Burma Road is out today.

And I have to go out of town for 10 days starting tomorrow.  Rats.

Steam update today has killed the game for me.  I get an error message saying WW2_64.exe is missing.  Tried validating files through Steam as well as trying to run the 32-bit.exe version but no joy.

^Once again your avatar and profile name are appropriate.

Just picked up the USMC and Burma Road campaign DLCs so sadness and disapproval abound....

It can't just be you...do the forums mention anything?

Yup.  People are posting that they're having the same issue.

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 12, 2018, 06:39:41 PM
Yup.  People are posting that they're having the same issue.

I must have gotten lucky, no issue for me.

...yet

Quote from: Gusington on June 12, 2018, 06:48:54 PM
...yet

We'll see, loads fine and plays OK...no issue starting or playing any scenarios.

...yet

Just messing with you

Maybe

Uninstall/reinstall didn't work.

I'm running on Win 7.  What about you, Grim?

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 12, 2018, 07:18:41 PM
Uninstall/reinstall didn't work.

I'm running on Win 7.  What about you, Grim?

Windows 10.

The update borked my install on Mac.

Has it really gotten that bad?  I'm now lumped in with Mac people?  When did it all go so wrong?

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 12, 2018, 07:29:11 PM
Has it really gotten that bad?  I'm now lumped in with Mac people?  When did it all go so wrong?

lol. I have a Win 7 laptop too, but OOB is installed on the MacBook.

I don't even know you SDR.

Only one thing to do.  Time for some problem drinking!

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 12, 2018, 07:37:09 PM
Only one thing to do.  Time for some problem drinking!

Good man  O0

Have you tried uninstall / keep uninstalled?

It has worked great for this game.  ;D

Bah!

Got the first issue sorted.  My anti-virus had quarantined the new .exe but didn't give me a pop-up because I had it running in silent mode.

However, the fine folks at Slitherine have gone and added controller support or something because now I'm getting the same unstoppable map-scrolling bug that I have in Check your 6! and Heroes of Normandie.  All their games see joysticks, rudders, and throttles as game controllers which override mouse and keyboard inputs.  As they're unable to fix this issue, I don't know why they insist on adding this feature.  The game was working fine prior to the latest patch.  I wish Steam would let you roll back to older versions.

Better do some more drinking.

I never stopped.

That is the key

Them packaging everything into a single multi-installer caused quite a bunch of people to get errors when installing, but it's working for me again.

As much as I like some of the ideas of the series, such as combat being less lethal, it can be very tiresome to chase around all those tiny units that survive a serious beating.

The resources are also very tight compared to a game like Panzer General/Panzer Corps. That's both good and bad. It's good because Panzer Corps in particular can be a bit on the easy side without penalties for the player, but it's bad because it means you often can't upgrade parts of your core forces whilst the AI tends to be ahead in the upgrade curve both in the equipment file availability dates (it gets the infantry types of a certain year of the war before you do) and in actual on-map availability.

Combine that with experience on the one hand being not all that important but on the other hand necessary to avoid serious losses, leading the player to using elite replacements whenever possible and you get a situation where it can be difficult to keep your force in good shape even on regular difficulty.

Coming to consoles - http://www.slitherine.com/news/2800/Order.of.Battle.is.coming.to.console!

 :bd:

So with the current sale, decided to try and give this a go again......not sure I am feeling it but maybe I am missing something.

Example:

Playing a scenario, wiped out the majority of the enemy and claimed their cities/objectives.  Created an offensive line as I was making my way towards the next series of objectives, had a small gap in my line.  All of a sudden, a single enemy mobile unit came darting through my line, didn't stop, just went flying by.  That single unit basically just went and started reclaiming all the objectives I had captured, just basically hopping between them.  Didn't garrison anything, just went back and forth between them, which I envision was just the computer trying to "win the game" by only focusing on capturing the objective long enough and moving on.

Although I fully understand they are doing it to get the "points" to win, just felt very gamey and unrealistic.  If the CPU is really only programmed to claim objectives (even if just one unit vs a force) vs use any assemblence of reality to do so, likely still not a game for me.  Becomes too much of a puzzle but maybe that is what attracts people to this game.

Too bad as I was going to impulsive buy all the DLC:)

Quote from: FlickJax on March 08, 2019, 04:37:17 AM
Coming to consoles - http://www.slitherine.com/news/2800/Order.of.Battle.is.coming.to.console!

hum? Kinda strange, was announced for "later this spring", anybody knows where it went?
Actually this was a very interesting move and I was very curious about knowing how it performed on that new market...

Edit: ah, found a comment in the Slitherine forums. Still in the works.
I wish them luck, very much looking forward to it.

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on August 10, 2019, 09:33:59 AM
So with the current sale, decided to try and give this a go again......not sure I am feeling it but maybe I am missing something.

Example:

Playing a scenario, wiped out the majority of the enemy and claimed their cities/objectives.  Created an offensive line as I was making my way towards the next series of objectives, had a small gap in my line.  All of a sudden, a single enemy mobile unit came darting through my line, didn't stop, just went flying by.  That single unit basically just went and started reclaiming all the objectives I had captured, just basically hopping between them.  Didn't garrison anything, just went back and forth between them, which I envision was just the computer trying to "win the game" by only focusing on capturing the objective long enough and moving on.

Although I fully understand they are doing it to get the "points" to win, just felt very gamey and unrealistic.  If the CPU is really only programmed to claim objectives (even if just one unit vs a force) vs use any assemblence of reality to do so, likely still not a game for me.  Becomes too much of a puzzle but maybe that is what attracts people to this game.

Too bad as I was going to impulsive buy all the DLC:)

That happens in some scenarios.  What is far more common is the AI aggressively isolating your units from supply.  If you don't get them back into supply during your move the AI usually kills them off.

I've played all of the Order of Battle releases including the first 9 scenarios in Red Star.  The Germans in Red Star have the best offense I've seen in any of the series.  Defensively, the AI is good throughout the series.  The AI is very reactive on defense - far better than most AIs.  I've had units cut off in counter-attacks more in this series than any other.  And OOB supply is critical.

The AI throughout the series is better at infiltration on offense than anything else I've seen.  In Red Star the Germans have very good coordinated offense including picking off wounded units, effectively withdrawing their wounded units for refit, and the best use of AI aircraft to kill your fleeing weakened aircraft I've seen.  In contrast, the Russian Offense in the Winter War expansion was often pretty dumb.  But in the programmers defense the Russians in that war initially were dumb on offense.

What is realistic is recon units don't need supply - but they also cannot capture key points or change territory boundaries.  Having a scout unit slip through is no big deal unless they hit your parked aircraft.

Quote from: airboy on August 10, 2019, 05:39:48 PM
What is realistic is recon units don't need supply - but they also cannot capture key points or change territory boundaries.  Having a scout unit slip through is no big deal unless they hit your parked aircraft.

In my case, the unit was armor (vs what I would consider recon--but maybe I am wrong) that slipped through....the fact it slipped through the lines really wasn't my concern.  The fact that unit simply went bouncing objective to objective just for the sake of getting the points was more of my concern.  It's simple logic was to pass through an objective, claim it and move on and continue to bounce as they needed to reclaim.  Just really didn't make any sense since I far out numbered his single unit and had zero chance of success...except with its hope it would have claimed enough objectives just before the timer expired.

Rest of the game seems decent enough, but if it ultimately uses these kind of gamey tactics, just might not be for me.

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on August 10, 2019, 06:20:04 PM

Quote from: airboy on August 10, 2019, 05:39:48 PM
What is realistic is recon units don't need supply - but they also cannot capture key points or change territory boundaries.  Having a scout unit slip through is no big deal unless they hit your parked aircraft.

In my case, the unit was armor (vs what I would consider recon--but maybe I am wrong) that slipped through....the fact it slipped through the lines really wasn't my concern.  The fact that unit simply went bouncing objective to objective just for the sake of getting the points was more of my concern.  It's simple logic was to pass through an objective, claim it and move on and continue to bounce as they needed to reclaim.  Just really didn't make any sense since I far out numbered his single unit and had zero chance of success...except with its hope it would have claimed enough objectives just before the timer expired.

Rest of the game seems decent enough, but if it ultimately uses these kind of gamey tactics, just might not be for me.

Unless I'm utterly hanging on by the skin of my teeth - I will not replace one of my killed units and save the reinforcement command points.  I use this to place a replacement unit ahead of a weak, rampaging unit in my rear.  My unit usually gets surprise, heavy wound/kill and then mops up.  That also forces me to keep a reserve which is usually a good idea.

Yep, that is one way to handle it....but my overall fear is like the turn or so before the end game, basically the AI will send out all their units in a last second grab of objective points just for the sake of getting the points versus any real logical reason. 

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on August 11, 2019, 05:49:13 AM
Yep, that is one way to handle it....but my overall fear is like the turn or so before the end game, basically the AI will send out all their units in a last second grab of objective points just for the sake of getting the points versus any real logical reason.

The AI moves when it sees an opportunity.  Never seen it save a rush for the last turn if the opportunity was there earlier. 

If you left a key hex unguarded and within one move of the front lines and lose on the last turn as a result that was poor tactics on your part and not a game design flaw.

Order of Battle Red Star was released on the 8th. 

I've finished everything but the last scenario - defense of Moscow.  This has been one of the better if not the best release so far.  The game has worked smoothly.  The AI is much better on attack.  There was one weird visual glitch that happened twice that I'll save for a review.  But the glitch was funny, rare, and did not influence game play.

Quote from: airboy on August 11, 2019, 02:06:56 PM

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on August 11, 2019, 05:49:13 AM
Yep, that is one way to handle it....but my overall fear is like the turn or so before the end game, basically the AI will send out all their units in a last second grab of objective points just for the sake of getting the points versus any real logical reason.

The AI moves when it sees an opportunity.  Never seen it save a rush for the last turn if the opportunity was there earlier. 

If you left a key hex unguarded and within one move of the front lines and lose on the last turn as a result that was poor tactics on your part and not a game design flaw.

I disagree.....it's not a matter of one move away.  I have completely destroyed the enemy forces in the south and captured all the objectives.  My force is overwhelming and have moved up north to address the next set of objectives.  This single armor unit simply darts between my line for a mad dash to claim those objective points I claimed.  Then bounces between them all and claims it for themselves in an effort to just get points before a "timer" expires?  Your telling me in a battle like this where I have overwhelming superiority on the field and a single unit simply staying long enough in an objective to "get Points" would be enough for them to claim victory in the battle?  Even though I command the field from every aspect?  So them simply driving from city to city is enough regardless of the realistic situation?

Any way, we will agree to disagree on this..I know you like the game and that's fine...nothing against that.  But for me, feels very "gamey" vs realistic.  Just my opinion.

What you describe would be annoying.  But this is the first time you have given enough description to understand what is going on. 

When something similar has happened to me - usually when I have to be on offense without enough units to hold a full line I will:
1] Hold back 3 command points to spawn an infantry unit as needed for an emergency
or
2] Toss a tactical air unit back to smash it and use an almost destroyed unit to reclaim the victory hexes.

A weakened armor unit running around behind the lines is out of supply until 3 turns pass on a captured supply point.  Nailing a straggler is usually not that hard unless you have a fully committed force all away from the theater - as you described happened to you.

But I get your point on this.  Problem is, almost all wargames that use victory hexes and a semi-decent AI will run into this situation.  It is a lot worse in games like PanzerCorps that lack supply rules.

thought i had said roughly the sam thing 3 or 4 times:)

i do appreciate your comments and i know there may be a decent game under the hood, but i'll have to think about whether i can overlook something like this.  just doesn't feel right on first look.

I'm probably being slow.  Had a sleep deficit over the last two weeks when my wife went suddenly deaf in one ear.  About 99% likely her hearing in that ear is gone forever.  She had horrible vertigo initially - but her body has been learning to compensate for having only one functioning balance mechanism.  Cause is unknown.  Rare problem (about 5 in 100,000 get it), but with her symptoms it is almost always permanent, total hearing loss.  Had to take her to a lot of doctor appointments and she is on a massive steroid dose which gives her roid rage and hot flashes.

Sorry to read this, Airboy.

Quote from: airboy on August 12, 2019, 10:13:38 AM
I'm probably being slow.  Had a sleep deficit over the last two weeks when my wife went suddenly deaf in one ear.  About 99% likely her hearing in that ear is gone forever.  She had horrible vertigo initially - but her body has been learning to compensate for having only one functioning balance mechanism.  Cause is unknown.  Rare problem (about 5 in 100,000 get it), but with her symptoms it is almost always permanent, total hearing loss.  Had to take her to a lot of doctor appointments and she is on a massive steroid dose which gives her roid rage and hot flashes.

That's awful news, airboy. I wish her well!

On a lighter note I first read it as 'road rage and hot flashes', which put a completely different picture in my head for a second! :D

Dang, Airboy, I'm sorry to hear that.  I hope you and your wife are both holding up well due to this change in circumstances.

Thoughts, prayers, and good karma all going your guys' way!!

It has been two weeks and she went back to the doctor yesterday.  He said the hearing is gone and nothing can be done.  They are weaning her off the Prednizone (steroid) which has had all sorts of bad side effects.  She got an MRI this morning on the very, very low probability chance she has a tumor or growth in her head.  They have to check for it, but it is almost certainly not what happened.

She has balance issues which are improving as her body learns to cope.  She will never be able to tell the direction of sound again and her balance will never be what it was when she could hear out of both ears.  Her ability to hear when multiple people talk at once or when there is a lot of background noise is gone.

Nothing can be done.  It is a mystery to medicine why it happens and uncommon (about 5 in 100,000 people over 50 get it).  She did what she could, did it quickly, and the doctors gave her the standard treatment.

This is just one of those "it is what it is" parts of life that you have to learn to deal with.  She is depressed and somewhat angry - but she also realizes this is not cancer or something else really horrific.

I feel for her and you, airboy. My Bell's Palsy came back about a month ago and now my face is worse than it ever was. It's extremely annoying as it affects my pronunciation of 'p' and 'f' tremendously - it's extremely depressing to deal with, but all you can do is keep on keepin' on. :(

Sorry to hear it.  Hope it gets better.

Your statement that it's a mystery to medicine is much the same here, so I feel your pain. Hope your wife is feeling better quickly. You just never know, it could get better by turning on a dime.

@airboy, so sorry to hear about your wife's condition. I hope she finds a way to successfully manage it on a daily basis to where her comfort, health, and happiness aren't compromised.

Quote from: airboy on August 13, 2019, 11:19:39 AM
They are weaning her off the Prednizone (steroid) which has had all sorts of bad side effects.

That's good they are weaning her off. I perform bone densitometry exams (DEXA scans) on patients at the hospital I work at. Prednisone can have adverse effects on bone mass and be a contributor to bone loss.

Best of luck to her.


Groggy

Dang, Cat, you too?  Tough health week here on the Grogheads forum...

One thing's for sure:  Getting older ain't for sissies.

You speak the truth Sooner.  :notworthy:   Aristotle told me the very same thing.

Glad to see threads are still easily derailed 'round here ( :2funny: ).

Airboy, are you going to do another AAR for this new expansion?

1] I'm 3/4ths the way through the second playthrough.  Making screenshots for a review.

2] I'm going to finish my US Pacific AAR first - then make a decision on what to do next.  Only 2 scenarios left there: Okinawa and Tokyo.

 \m/