spelk
Posts: 346
Joined: 10/15/2003
From: United Kingdom
Status: offline
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Also posted thison wargamer.com (apologies to those who have already read it)
I bought this, initially I was put off with the budgeting concerns, I've never been big into economics with my wargames. I've only given it the briefest of plays so far, but there is a kind of amusement factor attached to it. Sort of a puzzle game, where you have to divine what actually will work to give you the edge.
As far as I can see, you need to apportion your funds very carefully, between Intelligence, building new units, and fixing/resetting existing ones. R&D adds more punch to your unit types, but I think its a bit of a fund sync.
Shifting troops in and out of Areas of Operation (AO) seems to be about the only physical effect you have on the conflicts resolution. Leaving an AO empty is BAD!
It seems to me, that Intelligence plays a very important factor in your movement decisions (as it should) so don't skimp on the intell.
Getting a handle on the unit rotation is a bit tricky, the game or two I've played, I'm always left floundering with lots of troops stuck in ARFORGEN readying up. Once you're bereft of troops to deploy, the Orange snowball starts to happen and you're going to struggle to get back in the game. I've quit out at about Turn 10, because it was obvious I've made huge blunders early on and they've doomed my chance to win any of the conflicts in the AO's.
In the AO resolution, I see "Orange Wins" a LOT!
I've yet to work out exactly what the difference is, in terms of troops required, between the modes Major Combat Ops, Peacetime Ops and Irregular Warfare.
There are several things key to making the deployment decisions: The Value the enemy puts on the AO and the enemy troops type and strength deployed there. If you can ascertain these things every round, you'll stand a better chance at managing your deployments to win or draw. Lack of info, seems to cause you all sorts of trouble. Then you need to make sure your formation, readying and deployment rotation is equally stocked so you're never short of ready units to put in or pull out of the fight.
From the screenshots there doesn't seem to be much to the game, but the interplay between the variables you can throw into the black box engine, and the troop swapping really does make for quite an engaging puzzle style mechanic.
Its very abstracted, so don't expect too much of it. But so far, I'm quite enjoying the mental jiggery and pokery needed to make things come out in my favour.
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