Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe - Post Mortem?

Started by solops, February 01, 2017, 12:19:03 AM

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solops

OK, Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe  has been out for a bit. What is the scoop on it? Is it any good? I have severe reservations about it and I have seen little discussion about the combat system or the AI.

Quick edit: I am looking at solitaire play only.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

solops

OK. The fact that my post has had so many views with no comments in THIS community is very telling.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

acctingman

I was wondering about this game too. I tried HoI4, but I'm just too impatient or too stupid to understand that game  :crazy2:

bobarossa

#4
Well I really enjoyed playing it for 3 weeks solid.  There are a couple of annoying bugs that need squashing that were hampered by the AI coder having pneumonia but they're working on the patch.  I stopped playing about a week ago to wait for the patch.  I don't think it is comparable to the HOI series at all.  It is somewhere between HOI and Panzer Corps (if PC was at a strategic level). 

Bugs that annoyed me were that occasionally the soviet mobilization that occurs when Germany invades would be missing units; reconquering Iraq does not restore resource(oil) production for UK, and some people occasionally have there capital city lose its 'capital-ness' resulting in a loss of supply throughout the country.  However, the developers would personally fix your save file so you could continue!  I've never seen that kind of support before.

HoodedHorseJoe

Yeah I think it's in a kind of limbo state where it's functional, but needs work, and there's not much to say until that work is done. Even my guy is finding article research slow atm.

They're been really nice about things though, so that's something.
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Geezer

Played it solo for a while and had fun with it.  Waiting on MP to start a game with a buddy of mine.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  George Bernard Shaw

Wburn

It's a good game. I think 2 things I would like is a editor function that can open up a game that is currently being played. The other is the PBEM ++that is suppose to be implemented soon. I do like the hexes instead of the old squares. The color scheme is not that electric neon that the other SC games had when with battlefront. It has given me a lot of hours of play, the AI is pretty good and will give you a challenging game. I think some quirkiness is with the supply points involving cities. But overall the price is right and Matrix will not abandon this game, and keep improving it.

Boggit

Quote from: solops on February 01, 2017, 12:19:03 AM
OK, Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe  has been out for a bit. What is the scoop on it? Is it any good? I have severe reservations about it and I have seen little discussion about the combat system or the AI.

Quick edit: I am looking at solitaire play only.
I'm currently in process of writing an article for it, but RL and health issues have conspired to interfere, so it's about half way done. Graphically it's very pretty and there are several new additions to the rules over and above their last opus of WW1:Breakthrough. If you've played SC before, I don't really think it is all that ground breaking other than the vastly improved graphics, although gameplay is pretty similar to Breakthrough (which also has many more scenarios and a WW2 scenario).

The game is certainly solid single player, although I think that the comparative shortage of scenarios (5/6 IIRC)will put a ceiling on replayability.  All the same if you want something that plays fast, and is easy to pick up while having a deeper layer of complexity (within the engine) enough to provide a decent challenge, then I'd certainly consider buying it.
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own. Aldous Huxley

Foul Temptress! (Mirth replying to Gus) ;)

On a good day, our legislature has the prestige of a drunk urinating on a wall at 4am and getting most of it on his shoe. On a good day  ::) Steelgrave

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Rayfer

Quote from: Boggit on February 03, 2017, 12:34:57 AM
Quote from: solops on February 01, 2017, 12:19:03 AM
OK, Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe  has been out for a bit. What is the scoop on it? Is it any good? I have severe reservations about it and I have seen little discussion about the combat system or the AI.

Quick edit: I am looking at solitaire play only.
I'm currently in process of writing an article for it, but RL and health issues have conspired to interfere, so it's about half way done. Graphically it's very pretty and there are several new additions to the rules over and above their last opus of WW1:Breakthrough. If you've played SC before, I don't really think it is all that ground breaking other than the vastly improved graphics, although gameplay is pretty similar to Breakthrough (which also has many more scenarios and a WW2 scenario).

The game is certainly solid single player, although I think that the comparative shortage of scenarios (5/6 IIRC)will put a ceiling on replayability.  All the same if you want something that plays fast, and is easy to pick up while having a deeper layer of complexity (within the engine) enough to provide a decent challenge, then I'd certainly consider buying it.

But why oh why didn't they do something with the naval aspects of the game? It cries out for fleets in one hex rather than a continuation of the old process.

Philippe

Quote from: Rayfer on February 03, 2017, 07:47:13 AM
Quote from: Boggit on February 03, 2017, 12:34:57 AM
Quote from: solops on February 01, 2017, 12:19:03 AM
OK, Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe  has been out for a bit. What is the scoop on it? Is it any good? I have severe reservations about it and I have seen little discussion about the combat system or the AI.

Quick edit: I am looking at solitaire play only.
I'm currently in process of writing an article for it, but RL and health issues have conspired to interfere, so it's about half way done. Graphically it's very pretty and there are several new additions to the rules over and above their last opus of WW1:Breakthrough. If you've played SC before, I don't really think it is all that ground breaking other than the vastly improved graphics, although gameplay is pretty similar to Breakthrough (which also has many more scenarios and a WW2 scenario).

The game is certainly solid single player, although I think that the comparative shortage of scenarios (5/6 IIRC)will put a ceiling on replayability.  All the same if you want something that plays fast, and is easy to pick up while having a deeper layer of complexity (within the engine) enough to provide a decent challenge, then I'd certainly consider buying it.

But why oh why didn't they do something with the naval aspects of the game? It cries out for fleets in one hex rather than a continuation of the old process.

Because the developers seem to have an aversion to having any kind of stacking in the game, which leads to some pretty odd game conventions.
Every generation gets the Greeks and Romans it deserves.


History is a bad joke played by the living on the dead.


Senility is no excuse for feeblemindedness.

Slick Wilhelm

I think the game is fantastic. I've been playing for multiple hours each night since its release. Like others have said, there are a few kinks left to be ironed out(Why the Axis AI won't attack Malta in the Barbarossa campaign). But the balance and myriad of strategic options that a player has is very good.

Here's an example of what I mean. I'm playing the Barbarossa campaign, which begins on June 22, of course. I'm playing as the Allies. In my first game, fighting against Rommel and the Afrika Corps in the desert, I did well and managed to push the Germans all the way back across North Africa until I kicked them out of Tunis. I did send an American task force of Transports loaded with tanks, troops and headquarters units a bit earlier, all escorted by what I thought was a powerful battle group of 2 BBs, 2 CAs, 5 DDs and 1 CV.

Here's where I made a huge mistake. Instead of landing at the NW coast of North Africa as Operation Torch did in the real war, I decided that I would go all the way into the Mediterranean and land near Tripoli in a bold coup-de-main. Haha, very funny. The Italian Navy discovered me before I got to Tripoli, and kicked my ass. All of my transports were sunk, along with the majority of warships. I think one BB and one CA managed to limp back to Gibraltar.

So, I would say that this game is a lot of fun in single-player mode, but it's going to be awesome in multi-player, once that gets added. There are going to be so many sneaky things to attempt to do to your opponent. 

If you can live without stacking, it's a great game.  :bd:

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Bill Runacre

Hi all

I'd firstly like to say thank you to everyone who voted to place our game second in the Digital Game of the year category, that is great to see!  O0

Work on the first patch and Multiplayer is progressing, I can't give any timelines but Hubert is back to health now and we are working hard on it all. I can't wait to have them both rolled out, partly because like many others, I'm also itching to get some Multiplayer games in!  :)

Thanks again

Bill
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We're also on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/FurySoftware/

solops

From what I have read there is no stacking, just one unit per hex. And there is no multi-hex combat. So, someone explain to me how this can possibly work. The combined arms concept must be completely absent, unless units are some generic mix of infantry, armor, artillery and AA. And massing forces seems absent as well. Something must be missing from the sources available to me
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin