Graviteam's TANK WARFARE: Tunisa 1943 due out on STEAM in May 2017

Started by Staggerwing, April 18, 2017, 12:44:29 PM

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-budd-

Quote from: trek on May 02, 2017, 08:13:52 PM
Anyone else here running the game in Win 7? I've got the game running and can play the Campaign and Quick Battles. However I cannot get the Battle Editor to work. Just watched James Allen's review and in his video of him setting up the  Battle Editor his shows on the left side of the screen icon list the next to the bottom icon is a clock symbol in black and white. On my map screen it shows an icon of a guy in a semi-recline position sitting on a half circle. The icon is red and white. When I click on it a text says unable to execute etc. I'm thinking this may be a problem because I'm running Win 7. Since the main reason I play Graviteam's games is because I like to do custom battles. If this function doesn't work for me I will get a refund before my two hour return window is up on Steam.

BTW the Battle Editor works perfectly for me on Mius Front in Win 7 but since this new one is not setup for my OS I'm thinking it's the problem.

Someone  mentioned on the steam forums to make a new profile.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/549080/discussions/0/1327844097106694816

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trek

Thanks Budd. Yeah the new profile is the fix for it. I forgot that I had the same problem when I got GT Mius Front. I'd even made a note about it but forgot to look it up in my documentation.


sandman2575


Thomasew

Hi,

The British have arrived in Tunisia ..  :)

New patch/update (with Brits for Battle Editor), .. plus new DLC with British Campaign.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/549080/announcements/detail/2809534800118427648


Cheers
Tom
He Who Will Not Risk Cannot Win

Destraex

"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Silent Disapproval Robot

Installation was somewhat problematic.  I kept getting error messages when I tried to start until I finally went in and manually ran the installer and pointed out the .g3ext file like the old pre-Steam Graviteam tactics system.

Hofstadter

My wargaming channel
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Raied


ComradeP

I had three issues, two major and one minor with the Graviteam Tactics games that made me put them away and I wonder if there have been improvements in those areas.

1) The operation game was somewhat silly, as it depended on you moving fast units into the enemy rear to capture flags in order to "win" a fight. Killing enemy soldiers was usually not enough to win or even get a draw, as the result would depend on an increase in controlled territory.

Whilst you could optimize your deployment to take objectives close to the setup area, the AI deployment often made little sense as even when most of the AI troops were properly placed, there were troops bunched up in woods somewhere for no clear reason. Essentially, the AI couldn't handle larger maps with limited units.

2) The infantry tactics shown in the game didn't feel accurate because they didn't take terrain into account. Squads would spread out, not covering eachother, or simply move in a line even though that would mean half the squad would expose themselves in a way the other half couldn't cover. Having to micromanage the infantry so they didn't end up dead because of poor pathing choices was a chore.

Those two things killed most of the immersion for me. The "feel" of the game was indeed more or less the best I've experienced in a tactical wargame, as mentioned by others, but it all broke down rather quickly when you started playing. You have to keep pushing which, as in most tactical wargames, means the pace of operations is quicker than was historically the case, resulting in high losses and the immersion-breaking "control the flags" requirement for victory described above.

The minor issue was that squads went through their ammo rather quickly, and many scenarios resupply options were limited. It felt a bit strange that a regiment wouldn't have sufficient rifle-calibre munitions for the limited operations you would stage in the game. As you're required to use the same units over and over because capturing territory is required to win, you should get the ammunition to operate in such a manner if there were no historical supply shortages.
The fact that these people drew inspiration...and then became chicken farmers - Cyrano, Dragon' Up The Past #45

ComradeP

Sokolove, Kharkov Oblast, early March 1943.

After weeks of moving around by train and truck, followed by fierce battles around Krasnograd, the Panzergrenadiers of II/SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 1 are finally getting closer to Kharkov, their strategic objective for this campaign.

Today, they've assembled in some frozen fields just outside the village of Sokolove and have been tasked with removing the Soviet defenders.

Remarkably, they have been able to move into position without attracting any Soviet fire, although some of the men wonder why the colour of the ground changed to green as they were deploying. They were not able to move outside the coloured area, as if held back by an invisible force.

They can see flags floating in the sky, by now the men know they should be moving towards the areas with a Soviet flag. Yesterday, Erich Mayer was answering nature's call in the woods during a break in the advance when suddenly a Soviet flag nearby switched to a German flag! He was quite startled by the event, but at least he has a good story to tell when he gets home.

At the edge of the coloured area, Hans Hoffmann, in charge of the battalion radio and field telephone halftrack, knows what he must do even before he receives orders. Before the war, he was told he would need to get out of his vehicle to link command elements through a field telephone cable, but during the war he mostly has a different and even more important job. He is tasked with trying to get into the Soviet rear area as soon as possible and to drive close to the floating flags until they switch to a German flag. He has been doing that during the entire campaign so far and hasn't really encountered any resistance yet.

The rest of the battalion, carefully lined up and supported by MG fire from halftracks, Marders and StuGs, begins its advance.

The driver of StuG "Klabautermann" is called Markus the Mannequin by the rest of the crew, because he doesn't really have to do much driving and just sits still most of the time. The StuG twists and turns as if following certain points in the terrain, due to using the new technology Kraut Control. That's good, because he can't see a thing outside aside from a very white world with a bit of brown from the mud the tracks are churning up. The StuG carefully moves around difficult terrain that he couldn't possibly have spotted from the inside. He is allowed to drive on roads, but is told to let the StuG drive itself off-road.

The StuGs gunner, Dieter Müller, like everybody else involved in the attack, is happy that the enemy is not just physically present, but also indicated by coloured symbols. As soon as the symbol turns grey, he's out of the fight so they can stop firing at him, even though they can't actually see him to judge if he's really out of the fight. This is particularly helpful for buildings, where symbols tend to gather outside of visual range. When Dieter told his father, he wished they could've had these clever floating symbols in 1914. It would've made everything much less confusing.

The infantry is getting close to the outer buildings of the village. They can hear bullets flying around, and can see floating symbols popping up in the buildings, but those quickly change colour after a 75mm shell or MG burst hits the building.

As the leading squad prepares to pass the first house, the point man suddenly turns around, slaps the man behind him on the shoulder and says "you're it!" The men look at eachother for a moment, laugh and then proceed to have a merry game of tag with the rest of the squad, as the men run around the building in every direction for a few minutes. Whenever any kind of obstacle that prevents them moving in a line is encountered, they try to think of something original to do and move around as individuals for a while. After everybody gets to the other side of the house, they form up in a neat line again and move on.

The village is almost captured, but there's one house with a slight increase in elevation in front of it, and a tree as well. The men know this will be a very difficult position to take, as they find it very difficult to move in mutually supporting bounds or as fireteams when they encounter a slight rise or drop or an obstacle.

In that house, Ivan Gorkov sits in his favourite chair. He has lived in the village all his life and he's in a good mood. He went to the Marx Mart yesterday and could sign up for a box of apples in summer 1945! Such luxury with a war going on almost feels decadent. He can't actually see the Guards squad in his house, firing out of the windows, but if he tilts his head upwards he can see the symbols indicating their presence. He's used to men moving into his house becoming invisible. In fact, he's invisible himself, just like all the other villagers.

You'd think nobody lives in their houses if you'd just walk past them. He knows he can't die because he doesn't have a symbol. There are no civilian casualties in this war, even though the men that die on his doorstep sometimes look horrific. He also knows weapons won't really damage his home, it's as if the soldier are throwing pebbles at the walls. Once, an Il-2 crashed into his neighbour Vasily Bogovich's home and it didn't even wake the dog! He thought war would be horrible for him, but in the end it doesn't really interfere with his way of life. He ponders that thought as the SS change the colour of the last Soviet symbols in the village and the Soviet flag turns into a German flag. Would he still be able to get his apples? Marx was a German, so maybe the Germans won't close the Marx Mart. Who knows.
The fact that these people drew inspiration...and then became chicken farmers - Cyrano, Dragon' Up The Past #45

Hofstadter

It's not the best video. But I desperately to put something out there since I hadn't uploaded in a week

My wargaming channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx_VZ48DOrINe4XA7Bvf99A

"I earned the right to shoot Havoc!"

JasonPratt

Quote from: ComradeP on July 19, 2017, 07:56:57 AM
Sokolove, Kharkov Oblast, early March 1943.

Forgot the over-expense of ammo, but otherwise accurate.  >:D My favorite was the radio/phone halftrack racing around the backfield capping points.
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ComradeP

Ammo consumption is an issue during the campaign, but not during a single battle in most cases. After a few battles, your units will tend to start to run dry. For obvious reasons, high rate-of-fire weapons like MG's will show shortages first. The negative effect of having MG's on overwatch is that they tend to fire bursts at everybody and will run out fairly soon.

At first you can counter this by selecting a different platoon/company to lead the attack, but after a few battles they too will start to lose effectiveness due to ammunition shortages.

As in the real war, firefights tend to be fairly short, with lots of moving to and from contact in between.
The fact that these people drew inspiration...and then became chicken farmers - Cyrano, Dragon' Up The Past #45

Pete Dero