Reply With QuoteLet's talk about ancient Apple ][ games! I'll start:
Even today, Avalon-Hill's "Dreadnoughts" is unmatched as a World War II Atlantic naval warfare simulation. Discuss.
Ah, missed the Kiwi bit from the original post, sorry. The 2" is actually a little smaller than the American 60mm, which also makes it lighter and easier to get in direct fire. Again, if you only have one, don't treat it like infantry, use it in direct fire. With three or four, group them together and use the lot for smoke or infantry in the open.Originally Posted by Wisbechlad
Let's talk about ancient Apple ][ games! I'll start:
Even today, Avalon-Hill's "Dreadnoughts" is unmatched as a World War II Atlantic naval warfare simulation. Discuss.
I got rid of them! The mortar helped with suppression for one turn, but I think what did the trick was mostly suppression from my infantry squads. I got them into a good position and kept firing and firing at the AT gun while my tanks got into position.
I just barely won, I spent almost all my ammo. I like it that the game forces you to conserve ammo.
I'm not quite sure what knocked the guns out. It wasn't the mortar, so it had to be small arms fire (the tanks only had machine guns). Or maybe some grenade I didn't see.
I tried another scenario with a bigger mortar and it did indeed work, it knocked out an AA gun! It did have much more than only 9 HE rounds too, which helped.
I have yet to play CM multiplayer, but I'll definitely try that tactic when I do.
Thanks for the all advice, guys.
I've yet to try the Combat Mission games, even though they seem to be something I'd enjoy. I actually bought Beyond Overlord on GOG, but I haven't had time to try it out yet.
I'm considering buying the Combat Mission Anthology, if I like Beyond Overlord, but I seem to remember something about the games not working in vista (and presumably windows 7), without a patch that you have to pay for. So does anybody know if the Combat Mission Anthology includes the patch (i.e. does it work in Windows 7)?
I bought the first two or three CM games but the lack of a campaign and my disinterest in multiplayer meant that I never really spent a huge amount of time with them. Nevertheless, I'm interested in the new game, but I don't think I'll be picking it up right away.
I am looking forward to someone doing an AAR here in the forums (or on the front page), however.
Whoah, CM:BO is on GOG!!
So it is, and $5 cheaper than from Battlefront.
There were definately some decent games back then, though I never played Dreadnoughts. Was it a tactical game?
It has two modes: The "strategic game" is you, as the German player, trying to break out into the North Atlantic with the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen to sink various convoys. The computer, as the British player, is trying to detect you. When you choose (OR when an enemy battleship is in visual range), you go into "tactical mode" which is sort of a very simplified Star Fleet Battles-like turn based thing - for each turn you enter your manuever orders and set targets for your primary and secondary guns. All ships move, then all ships fire simultaneously (so even if you sink a ship when your shots are resolved, they still get a last shot in). Lots of trying to cross the enemy's T. The player gets points for sinking enemy ships, especially convoys, and especially the WS.8 convoy (if you sink that, Rommel wins in North Africa!), and returning to one of four safe ports (which is hard). The player loses points for taking damage or losing the Bismarck or Prinz Eugen.
In my last game, last night, I took the bold move of sailing between the Faroe Islands and Scapa Flow, instead of taking the northern route. Detected a couple of times, but aided by weather (the game doesn't model the fact that the British had broken the German Enigma codes...), I managed to avoid encounters until, off the west coast of Ireland, I literally stumbled on top of the troop transport Britannic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Bri...)#World_War_II) in the midst of thick fog. Fleeing south, I was set upon by the Rodney, while simultaneously coming within sight of the WS.8 convoy (http://www.naval-history.net/xAH-WSConvoys02.htm), protected only by the CA Exeter and some destroyers and a light cruiser. The convoy was to my northwest, and the Rodney was far to the northeast. This allowed me to steam straight at the convoy, while the Rodney - in order to reach me - had to let me cross his T. Surprisingly, the destroyer group (which I ignored until after I had taken care of the convoy and the Rodney) did more damage to me in this situation than the Rodney.
At this point, the Bismarck's A guns were jammed and its X guns were damaged, but no serious hull damage had occurred. The Prinz Eugen was nearly untouched, losing only one secondary gun. I decided that I had accomplished my mission, and headed back to the northeast, towards Bergen (my logic being that since I had been heading SW, if I tried to make it to Brest I was likely to encounter the Prince of Wales or the Hood). Just south of the Faroes I ran into the battlecruiser Repulse, which tailed me for a few turns before I could force a fight (typically, when a minor BB or BC encounters you, the nightmare scenario is that it will tail you and then, a few turns later, 2 or 3 more BBs make it into the area. I lucked out here). I managed to force a fight with the Repulse, sink it, and then limped into Bergen with no hull damage but with pretty much no guns left. German major victory.
I wish I'd taken screenshots. Maybe I'll do a with-pictures AAR for it next.
Then there is a multiplayer battle mode that lets you set up arbitrary battles between just about all the major ships of WWII from France, Britain, Germany, and the US (can't remember if there are Japanese ships or not, I'll look it up). Secretly I always wanted this to have a computer AI option as well, but it didn't.
You can find this on the Asimov apple II archive, and I believe the disk image it's on comes with documentation. The commands are pretty easily discoverable even without it.
Edit: I thought this was only an Apple II game, but when I looked to see if this was still for sale anywhere, I found "Dreadnoughts+" for PC: http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI....m=130487506385. The screenshots on that eBay page totally look like the Apple II version though, so I'm not sure what's going on.
Last edited by peterb; 04-11-2011 at 07:49 AM.
Those screen shots so bring back memories. One thing AH did was give you a lot of player aids. It was almost like it was a computer assisted game as opposed to a computer game.
So even though it was originally made for the Apple it plays ok in Windows? That's cool!
I use to play a lot of the old SSI games for the Apple. I wonder if any of those would work in Windows?
I'm looking forward to Panzer Corps. It's a follow up to Panzer General. Being published by Slitherine. I started playing Panzer General II recently and would love to see a remake of this classic.
I fret about stuff like this. So when I played CMBB a few years ago, I went to the Battlefront forums to troll all the threads that had lists of favorite/best scenarios. I came up with a master list. Some of them shipped on the CD, and others you need to download from the Scenario Depot or other fan websites. Do a search to see how that's working these days.
I'm sure they aren't all perfect, but since they were on someone's favorite list I figured they must be decent. Plus I adored the game so they must have done something right.
Here's the ones I played:
Unfortunately I don't remember much about them. Read the descriptions in the scenario viewer or the download site. I threw a few amusing scenarios in there too. One featured a huge assault cannon that made big explosion and took a minute to reload. There were also a couple of Wittman-is-overpowered-OMG-am-I-a-Nazi-fetishist scenarios because it's fun to blow stuff up sometimes. Adjust to your taste. Finally, I played half the Russian Force Training scenarios that get you used to the quirks of early Russian infantry and tanks. I never quite got it, so I think most of the scenarios above are Axis.HSG KC Untrstrmfhr Muehleck.cme
Romanian Surprise.cme
Hill 312-AXIS.cme
BT Hitler's Son101-allied.cme
B&T-EarlyWittmann.cme
CSDT-B14-Eisen-Faust-AXIS.cme
BT Antonescu Kaputt-allies.cme
SB A Simple Attack-ALLIES.cme
SP-The Library - AI axis.cme
HSG EW The Mythical Beast-AXIS.cme
Danube Blues MPG1-AXIS.cme
AL-Elbrus-AXIS-done.cme
HSG EW A Tiger by the Tail.cme
Here's the rest of the list that I never got around to playing:
SP-The Bitter End.cmf
KP-Ponyri ExpressSP.cme
A Long Day's March.cmf
A Morning at the Zoo.cme
B&T-Beginning of the End.cmf
B&T-Ghetto Uprising.cme
B&T-Izyium Diet Plan.cme
B&T-King of the Hill.cme
B&T-Taking the Train.cme
Battle For The Reichstag.cme
Blitzkrieg.cmf
BT Der Manstein Kommt!.cmf
BT Failure on the Aksai.cmf
BT Glimmer of Valor.cme
BT Hollow Legion.cme
BT-Punitive Expedition101.cmf
Cemetery Hill.cme
ChristmasBattleFinal.cme
Dergatschi Roadblock.cmf
GD410705 Assault on Kamienka.cme
GD440502 Romanian Defence.cme
KP-Tank Warning.cmf
Kruglowka Railway.cmf
Magnuszew Bridgehead.cmf
Mobile Defense.cmf
Penny Packets.cmf
Pershotraveneve Village.cme
Siberian Devils.cmf
Siege of Schloss Klessin.cme
SP-Our Backs to the Volga.cme
SP-Tatsinskaya Raid.cme
Stalingrad on the Danube.cme
Sword of Bagration - SP.cme
To the Volga.cmf
Twenty-1st Army Counterattacks.cmf
Dammit man, thank you! I actually bookmarked that post. Those training scenarios look very intriguing, I'm going to start there.
I've been frothing at the mouth waiting to put some more time into the game. It's definitely addictive.
FYI Slitherine is merging with Matrix today. Consolidates wargaming publishers. Makes sense as it builds some scale for two good publishers. Hopefully strengthens the genre.
Slittrix?
Matrine?
Ideally this consolidates the market more and let's them slap a $150 price tag on most games; I want to see those crazy kids succeed.
I want to see them succeed by lowering prices myself.
Advanced Tactics: Gold is out. You get US$15 off if you own the original.
edit: ...is it possible this is so popular that their server is getting hammered? Very slow response time atm, anyway.
Last edited by lesslucid; 04-12-2011 at 07:17 PM.
Possibly, it's one of their more approachable games. I've been thinking about picking it up, I tried People's Tactics and enjoyed the system and the AARs leading up to release have been interesting. It's definitely a simpler universal system than TOAW :)
Wooo! Buying now.
Good luck to Maslitherix. I hope to see a more attractive website and quicker price drops on old, old games.
Uhh . . . this was announced a year ago. I think all that happened today was that they finalized/completed the merger.
Matrix isn't a bad company. Every now and then they give away some of their older game. I think it was last year that they gave away a baseball game.
I've been reading some of the AAR's for CM:N over on the Battlefront forum. Some of them are really good and have me quite excited about the game. These two in particular are great:
AAR 1
US Perspective - http://www.battlefront.com/community...ad.php?t=94495
German Perspective - http://www.battlefront.com/community...ad.php?t=94496
AAR 2 - Armor Engagement - Panzer vs Sherrman
http://www.battlefront.com/community...ad.php?t=95456
Advanced Tactics Gold is basically a 4x game when you play a random map. I'm still coming to terms with the new mechanics, though. For example, I didn't realize you could build factories which would have helped me SO MUCH early in the random game I'm playing.
Back to the game!
I only played the original Peoples Tactics. I thought that was pretty good for a free game.
Did you play the original? If so how does this compare to it, worth the price?
I played People's Tactics and AT: WW2. I love them all, and I do think this is worthwhile. The scenarios are scarce right now, but that'll change with time, especially as one of the biggest changes is to the editor, making it more powerful.
What I love most about the game, however, is the random scenario generator. That seems just chock full of gameplay, and it's what I mostly played in AT:WW2.
Cool. When I played Peoples Tactics it reminded me of Empires II.
Maybe I'll give Gold a try. At the very least I can reward the designers for the free play I got!
I saw that it was possible to build factories, but what do they actually do? Add to your overall production? Allow new spawn-points? Something else?
I recently played Massive Assault and am now on Massive Assault: Phantom Renaissance and have to say that they are fun turn-based wargames (though I'm someone who likes beer & pretzel-type wargames akin to Axis and Allies). I'm wondering if someone can help me with what the other versions of the game are?
What is Massive Assault: Domination? I heard it's a sequel to MA1? But I thought Phantom Renaissance was the sequel? Confused. Even worse, what is Massive Assault Network 2?
I only play single player, so multi isn't a factor. Thanks for any help!
Edit: Nevermind...found the answer. Domination is the same as Phantom, which seems to basically be MA 1.5 whereas MAN2 is online only even though it does have an AI for single-player training. Hard to keep up when you're late to the party.
Last edited by lokiju; 04-21-2011 at 11:37 AM.
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