07/11/14

GrogHeads Reviews Piercing Fortress Europa

A Flash Review by Boggit

Developed by Adanac Command Studios and Published by Matrix/Slitherine

Click images to enlarge

When I saw this operational level game I was very motivated to look at it, as it claimed to emphasise logistics as a key element. I like this dimension, since in reality operations are usually dictated by the ability to supply. Many operational games deal with this only at a very simple level to avoid bogging the game down, so it is interesting to see whether Piercing Fortress Europa gets the balance right between reality and playability. I looked at the game under release version v1.2. The update improves things over the initial release, and adds sound which the release version lacked. In terms of scale each hex represents roughly 12 km across, each turn four days in the summer, up to six days in the winter, and three days for the Sicily Campaign. Units are divisions, brigades, or commando units.

The game menu gives a choice of 6 campaigns, handicap settings, game type (for example single player for either side, hot-seat, or play by electronic mail (PBEM)), and screen resolution. The game screen is windowed, and doesn’t support a full screen mode, which is a bit odd for a game released these days but is not a big deal. I have Guns of August from the same developer, which has been out for a while now, and that game displays similarly, so I’m not expecting any further screen mode changes from the developer.

The menu screen is functional
The menu screen is functional

The PBEM option is pretty basic, and it is a pity it doesn’t take advantage of Matrix/Slitherine’s multiplayer lobby, which is user friendly and a good source for finding opponents. Instead it’s a question of entering a password, saving the game, and sending it by email as an attachment, or by a memory stick. To be honest I wasn’t very impressed, especially since most recent Matrix/Slitherine releases use the excellent Matrix/Slitherine multiplayer lobby. I’m hoping this feature will change in a future update.

Pre-landing planning in Sicily. I have a free choice as to where to land, but pre-invasion recon has been a disaster!
Pre-landing planning in Sicily. I have a free choice as to where to land, but pre-invasion recon has been a disaster!

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07/10/14

AARsday! Sergeants Miniatures Game at Origins 2014

Game Master extraordinaire Vance Strickland gives us a quick dash thru one of the games he supervised at the GrogHeads Wargaming Central Command at Origins.

Vance Strickland, 10 July 2014

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The last organized game of Sergeants Miniatures Game (SMG) of the con was to be a team game. We had three people show up, along with one guy’s wife who he convinced to be his team mate. She was obviously a gamer but said she was not a wargamer.

So with four people, two playing the US paratroopers and two playing the German light infantry, Rob Belli from Lost Battalion Games set about explaining the rules. While this was going on the husband kept asking me about the tactics of the game, how certain terrain worked, what was the best way to use a firebase and a maneuver group etc… which was all good, but this wasn’t Advanced Squad Leader.  SMG is a light skirmish-level game that’s meant to be fun and fairly quick to play. His wife was listening intently to Rob’s explanations as were the two German players.

In my head I gave each of the players name tags. Cpt. Ernest and Plucky Wife were the US players. The German players were a gentleman in his early 60’s and young man in his 20’s. Both German players were wargamers and recognized SMG for what it was. The German players became Junior German and Senior German to me.

Each team player was given a section consisting of five troops, including a mix of rifle and sub-machine gun armed men, an NCO leader, and a machine gunner. The NCO leader gives you more action cards to draw each turn, which gives you more options for what you can do in a turn. It’s best to protect these guys but you can’t leave them too far behind because they are also the ones that can rally your pinned troopers.

 

Rob Belli explains the rules to the teams
Rob Belli explains the rules to the teams

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07/9/14

GrogHeads Interviews Uwe Eickert of Academy Games

Grogheads’ Corinne Mahaffey sat down to talk with Academy Games’ Uwe Eickert at Origins.  In person, Uwe radiates a cheerful enthusiastic intensity; game design is clearly one of his passions!

Grogheads:  What new games do you have coming up?

Academy Games:  The Conflict of Heroes Solo Expansion, and Conflict of Heroes – Guadalcanal are shipping soon.  We will have a Kickstarter for Conflict of Heroes: D-Day Airborne Battles this fall!

Academy Games
Academy Games

In addition, in 2015 we expect to publish the first game in our Civil War/Napoleonics series: Gettysburg – Day 1 Bloody Crossroads. This will be the first game in a 2 or 3 volume set based on this battle. The map boards and counters are big and incredibly beautiful! (Check our website for pictures [http://academygames.com/games/fight-for-the-colours/bloody-crossroads-gettysburg-day-1])  This is a new system that implements some of our newest and most advanced design mechanisms; there will be no dice, no numbers on the counters, and no charts to look up.  You will be able to see the detailed state of each Regiment by quickly looking at its Brigade Command board. This will tell you its fatigue, morale, and current capabilities.  The game can be played with 1 to 8 players and the decision cycle for each player is constant, with little to no down time.

We have been doing a great deal of research on the US Civil War, concentrating on the soldier’s fatigue and mental aspects of combat. We have factored these aspects into the game mechanism, so that brigades act more like they did in battle, often flowing forward and back towards the enemy.  We’ve been working on this for 4 years and hope to publish it in 2015.

 

Grogheads:  Could you compare how you build computer games versus board games?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each medium?

Academy Games:  We always start with the board game because we find we have more subtlety when we design the board game.  If we have no computing power, then we build a better, more intuitive, more streamlined game to begin with, which we can then move to the computer.

When we create board game mechanics, the results are transparent; we know why we came to the in-game result that we did, and we learn the strategy of the game.

Computer war game AIs are often designed with a biased advantage.  They are often given limited, hard coded orders.  However, human thought patterns are not limited in this way.  The Artificial Intelligence (AI) that we have developed for Conflict of Heroes utilizes a unique Emergent Behavior and Agent Based Logic that evaluates Battlefield Situational Conditions. The AI then implements the best Tactical Response based on its available unit assets and resources. If the forces and logistics are available, the order is executed by the best available AI unit.  If not, the secondary procedure order is implemented.

We think people will be surprised by the intuitiveness of our board game AI.  Our AI does not “smooth” results or have arbitrary advantages.  No matter which side you take, the AI will kick most players’ butts 60% of the time. This system has gone through several development cycles and we have had help from some of the most cutting edge computer programmers, active duty Army officers, and game designers.

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07/6/14

GrogHeads Reviews Eschalon Book 3

Hop on GOG.com and pick up some old-school RPG action.

by Avery Abernethy, 6 July 2014

Eschalon Book 3 (EB3) is the final release in the Basilisk Software trilogy. It is a single person, turned based role-playing game. This review is based on more than 25 hours of game play and the completion of all major quests. Although the game developers were kind enough to offer me a review copy through Steam, I purchased a copy from www.gog.com. I bought a copy because I like having the game in DRM-free mode, in a form easily playable on the road when I lack an internet connection. The www.gog.com download was fast. I did not have any technical problems with the game crashing, freezing, or similar problems.

EB3 follows the conventions of the previous two releases which are common to many computer role playing games. The player has the choice of four different types of starting characters: a melee fighter, an offensive magic specialist, a defensive/healing magic specialist, or a missile weapon oriented fighter. Your character starts very weak, with poor armor, weapons, or a few weak spells. Your initial opponents are also weak.: your first enemy encounters are against rather large roaches which you beat to death with wooden clubs.

start out weak
Start out weak

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