Major_Mess
Posts: 451
Joined: 2/8/2004
From: The True North. Strong and Free
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: The Almighty Turtle
To be honest, even though I recognize that SPWW2 has been given a far better support structure, far more justice from its' leadership (selling megacampaigns that can no longer be compatible? Really now?), and that on a lot of the functions SPWW2 does have the mechanical advantage...
On the whole I still believe that SPWAW is the better game. Based on the engine alone, nevermind the sound and the rest. To be honest, Shrapnel's games have always felt unimaginably clunky and slow to me. Like there will be a noticeable (painfully noticeable) gap in between when you click on a unit to do something and when it moves. No SP game should be arcadey or as fast paced as-say- Panzer Corps/Panzer General is. This is a very methodical game. But I am a pretty methodical player, and when I order something I want it to *happen* in a time shorter than "a sizable portion of a minute."
I'm a busy person, and even if I wasn't that alone would be crippling.
Secondly, I flatout disagree with many of the "advantages" pointed out by the Nikademus and the linked post.
It's hard for me to call "making infantry harder to kill" a plus if I can have an elite HMG and rifle squad stand practically on top of an exposed enemy unit (or vice versa) and have them take aeons to kill. Believe me, I even tried maxing out one side's values and minimizing the other's as an experiment and it still takes an ungodly amount of time to actually destroy any infantry unit.
Knock Knock?
Who's there?
Some?
Some who?
Somme's a lot different if walking your infantry into a hail of MG fire doesn't get them killed as easily.
This isn't to say that it can't take an ungodly amount of firepower and time to wipe out infantry units in SPWAW, but there are usually reasons for that. They're large, they're in heavily defensible positions like mountains, trenches, or the like. Or God help you- if you're facing the Japanese, Chinese, North Koreans, or the like- some combo of the above. That I like, and I think it's good both for realism and for game balance.
In contrast, SPWW2 and its' cousin seems to be amazingly hard on vehicles in comparison to its' infantry. I've had infantry knock out Autoblindas just by firing rifles (or on a couple memorable occasions, *pistols*) at them. Amongst other things. I think armor really is underplayed in there, and a few mms of armor in SPWAW go a lot further (for better and worse) than Shrapnel's games. While I can understand there might be some value in making small arms capable of doing that, how it works has always come across as excessive. In contrast, SPWAW hits a good mixture. You can expect to blow up a truck, motorcyle, or the like with small arms. Doing so to an armored car is less so. And so on.
But as a lot of people have said, a lot of combat happens pretty fast. You can go from full strength unit to wiped out very quickly, and I think SPWAW does that well. The Shrapnel games I do not think handle the same issue.
As for the "gamey" adjustment of artillery for fast vehicles or Op Fire, I'd like to point you to the Western Allied artillery ranging in on the Italian Medium (read: light) tanks trying to break out of Beda Fomm. Or the Germans doing the same against De Gaulle's attempt to toss them back over the river in 1940. I do think the way artillery is set up gives Player One (not necessarily the human, but whoever is in it) a somewhat unfair advantage, but I do think it makes sense to be able to adjust for it on both sides.
As for Op Fire, it seems like this is based more on the idea of making it fair for the AI than realism. The ability to determine when and when not to put out fire has been a battle deciding issue for something like four centuries now (at least), and I think it is only fair to let the player decide that.
The fact that SPWW2 lets you do that too (but of course only if you pay...) and it's listed as a feature tells me this shouldn't be an argument about whether or not return fire filtering should be available. It should be. It's just that one has it available for free (as an integral part of the system) and the other demands cash for it. The AI should be able to handle it. If it can't, that's a problem with the AI that should optimally be fixed. Not an argument against it altogether.
Coupled that with the fact that SPWAW actually covers far more ground than SPWW2 (its' equivalent). While it defacto goes from 1930 to 1949 (as compared to SPWW2's 1930 to 1946..... I note they left *that* out of their comparison....), I've seen SPWAW effectively model battles from WWI to the Korean War, First Indochinese War, and so on. If someone had the mind and inclination it could easily model such battles as the Suez War, Hungarian and Polish uprisings in 1956, the Arab Israeli wars up to 1956 if not 1973, and things like the Lebanese intervention in 1958 *at Least.* I've even seen Steampunk battles in an alternate 1870's or Civil War, and I imagine it could do late 19th century/early 20th century combat fairly well (though it would need some major adjustments, and the "inertia" of Shrapnel games' infantry units might help do it better).
So putting it generously, that's at least forty years of military development and fighting (1914-1954) that SPWAW's designers already have fought. And the potential of increasing that even further with effectively no change to the OOB as it stands.
That is in comparison to SPMBT's 70 years of OOB (though with potential for stretching; I've seen an MBT scenario on a WWII one, though it was a different variant of one also available on WAW). While SPWW2 is pretty much limited to 1930-1946, or at most stretching a few years before that and a few years after, to maybe twentysome years.
SPWW2 doesn't have the legs for that. Korean War battles (even those involving almost exactly the same technology, troops, and doctrine) get parceled into SPMBT, and generally are undervalued. And to this day I have seen pretty much no attempts at a WWI battle in SPWW2. I can imagine why.
And I could go on, but those I think are the most important points. I fully concede that in things like treatment of terrain, unit selection, varying experience/morale benefits, and the like Shrapnel games have an indisputable edge. But the fact still remains that I play SPWAW regularly and bought the Megacampaigns long after most didn't (and even was interested in pondering what new Megas might be made).
I only play Shrapnel's games if I have an urgent hankering to play something that I absolutely cannot do on SPWAW, like a 1940's/50's Falklands War, the Austrian guerrilla actions after WWII against the Yugoslavs, the Thai expeditionary force to help the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, the Medak Pocket, and so on. Because while I believe they have a lot going for them and I can't fault anybody for liking them I feel like they're crippled in many, many important ways. Far more than just listing unit and formation numbers.
But again, that is my opinion. I just felt I had to mention it. Ideally I think WAW *badly* needs adoption and upgrading, if not a resurrection. I also believe that in the best of all worlds, we would be able to merge the best parts of SPWAW and the Shrapnel Games to good effect. But that hasn't happened yet, and considering how many people prefer "bulletproof infantry" I am not sure the result would satisfy me.
But there you go, here I stand. Take it as you will.
This.
The Brother Speaks the Truth.
TAT, you're waaaaay more diplomatic than I could ever be.
But ... SPWaW still lives, and who knows what new developments might occur.
Hey, maybe Matrix/Slitherene are actively working on hahahahahahahaha ..... I can't finish that sentence.
cheers
MM
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SPWaW vs winSPWW2 - 
), being unable to run on a modern environment is a simple game killer. 
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