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Game Flow - 8/25/2001 11:59:00 AM   
divetech

 

Posts: 2
Joined: 8/25/2001
From: Chesapeake, VA
Status: offline 		o.k., here goes....I really hate to sound ungrateful to the Matrixgames crew, but has anyone else noticed how darn slow this game seems?
I'm an old fan of SP I, II and III, and what originally drew me into the game wasn't the meticulous OOB accuracy or the exact number of rounds carried by a PzKpfw-IIf, but the exciting flow of the game. All the computer seems to buy now is infantry. And yes..I am aware that most REAL battles were fought this way, but this isn't real...it's a game. Maybe if someone came up with an"AI purchase more Armor" option.....

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- 8/25/2001 3:25:00 PM   
Fabs

 

Posts: 444
Joined: 6/5/2000
From: London, U.K.
Status: offline 		Sorry to disagree with you, but I think you'll find most SPWAW enthusiasts appreciate the realism level that Matrix have taken the old SP system to. SPWAW is a game developed for wargaming enthusiasts, not for shoot'em up arcade types. If you feel that way, buy "Sudden strike".

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Fabs

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Post #: 2
- 8/25/2001 3:26:00 PM   
skukko


Posts: 1928
Joined: 10/24/2000
From: Finland
Status: offline 		So why don't you play Spwaw4.5 then ? It has in AIs purchase guns and armor and after it has bought them and is sure it was enough it buys infantry with rest of the points. Requests to change the routine have been heard in later updates and now 4.5 routine is wanted back. Not only you.. -but not me. I just tested campaign where against my platoon of PZ-IIIg's and one mot.infantry coy were 42 BT-7s and one company infantry supported by two batteries of 75mm-howitzers. I think that this is better for the game flow than unbreakable barrages what happened in 4.5. ( And yes, I did win those 42BTs and other light-tanks, but I also suffered infantry losses as I hadn't enough AT-power.But I didn't loose my platoon totally ) Besides SP1 and 2 runs too fast on my machine nowdays... mosh

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salute

mosh

If its not rotten, shoot again

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Post #: 3
- 8/25/2001 6:27:00 PM   
john g

 

Posts: 984
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: college station, tx usa
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by divetech:
o.k., here goes....I really hate to sound ungrateful to the Matrixgames crew, but has anyone else noticed how darn slow this game seems?
I'm an old fan of SP I, II and III, and what originally drew me into the game wasn't the meticulous OOB accuracy or the exact number of rounds carried by a PzKpfw-IIf, but the exciting flow of the game. All the computer seems to buy now is infantry. And yes..I am aware that most REAL battles were fought this way, but this isn't real...it's a game. Maybe if someone came up with an"AI purchase more Armor" option.....
Perhaps you might like SPWW2 better, it seems to play tank heavy, personally I prefer the infantry heavy games of SPWaW, even the megacampaign seems
too tank heavy to me. This brings up a thought, all those players who complained about former tank crews being too potent on the battlefield, able to destroy tanks with ease, they may have been playing without enough infantry to kill off those enemy crews. To me the right mix is one company of infantry to 1 platoon of tanks, roughly the proportion of a panzergrenadier division. For those who prefer a company or two of tanks to a platoon of infantry, to each their own.
thanks, John.

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Post #: 4
- 8/25/2001 7:38:00 PM   
Les_the_Sarge_9_1

 

Posts: 4392
Joined: 12/29/2000
Status: offline 		The ONLY reason I play SPWaW is for the accuracy.
Its the same reason I would rather play Advanced Third Reich than Axis and Allies (table top games). That its only a game is a non comment at best (or at least I have never actually been shot at while playing it). To date all of the updates to the game have been from an obsession with accuracy (the updates are not generally about fixing bugs, bugs only creep in while trying to enhance accuracy). When I hear comments about a games speed, especially when directed against a wargame, admittedly I have a predictable knee jerk reaction. That being, "must be another high powered computer using, never played any actual real wargames to know what truely slow pace is all about, sort of gamer".
But then I started playing wargames back when Tactics II (a board game) was the only wargame in existence. And I have played the Europa series of monster sized games (multiple feet by multiple feet sized maps with thousands of counters) with a casual attitude. So I guess in my opinion, there is no such thing as a slow computer wargame. Heck it does 80% of the work, and often doesnt even enforce a need to even look at the rules. Computer wargames give you nifty graphics, cool sounds, and you dont have to do much mental calculations wondering if such and such a piece can go to such and such a location (the game usually tells ya). Comparing one computer wargame against another for speed. Hmmmm well gotta say, that is indicative of a spoiled person that has never really experienced a real wargame. Me I find Steel Panthers a rather speedy game. I turned off fast artillery just so I could enjoy the explosions slowly actually.
I have played scenarios that featured a great bajillion units to move. And I have played battles that had next to nothing. I enjoyed both equally. If a turn takes 5 minutes start to finish, or 30 minutes start to finish it is immaterial. I am only playing the game because its fun. If a game takes me one full day of goofing off, or several days in bits and bites, I have had fun all along regardless. But I have heard plenty of guys make the comment "played such and such a game, beat it in x hours". Sheeesh they make it sound like it was some sort of chore to accomplish as fast as possible.
If you truely enjoy something, its the journey that you enjoy, not the destination. This has been my long winded way of saying, no one is going to want to see SPWaW made more gamey. If you need more game and less accuracy, you have the wrong game. I look forward to each new version hoping its even more detailed than the last.

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I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

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Post #: 5
- 8/25/2001 8:22:00 PM   
Charles2222


Posts: 3993
Joined: 3/12/2001
Status: offline 		I'm sure someone could tip off in this regard better than myself, but if you want something quicker, jack around with the message delays and the bombardment mode. I think the pace of the battles is quite perfect for what this type of game tries to do. I can slow it to a crawl when I'm getting fire from an unknown gun, just to make sure that I saw what I thought I saw, and make it numbingly fast at other times (too bad I can't change ROM [rate of messages] during the enemy's turn. I would say that's perhaps the primary irritation I have with this game, in that I cannot pause or change ROM during the enemy's turn, so that it can aid in boring parts and also help me spot hidden fire coming from hexes that I almost no way can remember, as is, after the turn is over). In the latter days of my playing the game, I went to cutting like 1/2 a second off my already pretty quick message delay, and it really did seem like there was something like a live battle going on, particularly if you have the background noise on as the enemy opfires your attack.

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Post #: 6
- 8/25/2001 11:19:00 PM   
parusski


Posts: 4804
Joined: 5/8/2000
From: Jackson Tn
Status: offline 		divetech, I too must disagree. The game is much more balanced now. I find that in nearly every campaign scenario there is a near perfect mix of enemy tanks, sp's, td's and infantry for my AFV's to shoot up. The new SPWAW is the most realistic way of fighting a war without any danger. So, enjoy.

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"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman

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Post #: 7
- 8/25/2001 11:21:00 PM   
Bing

 

Posts: 1366
Joined: 5/20/2000
From: Gaylord, MI, USA
Status: offline 		Victory Games "Pacific War" used to take me five hours to SET UP, before the first move was made in anger. Each turn would be on the order of one or two hours - PER SIDE. And there were worse paper games, too, as I remember (I too go back to the days of Tactic II). SPW@W plays just about right, I think. I wonder if the person complaining about slow play has adusted the delay settings in the preferences? Remember too that the more units in contact with one another, the more firing will take place. I concur, especially withe the 16 bit stereo files and new speakers, love those artillery shoots!!! None of that Fast Arty for this kid!! Bing

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From the 101st Airborne Division Association Website

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Post #: 8
- 8/26/2001 8:05:00 AM   
divetech

 

Posts: 2
Joined: 8/25/2001
From: Chesapeake, VA
Status: offline 		Thanks for the comments...especially Skukko...I'll have to find that CD I burned of 4.5. Fabs..chill...I certaintly didn't mean it as an insult. I can't stand Arcade-style games. I was merely expressing my preference for Armor due to its' superior mobility & firepower. Les the Sarge 9-1....I and a friend invented a system for playing with the old 1/72nd scale kits on an old Army rug on our ping-pong table back when I was only 13. So there goes your "never really experienced" theory. I used to love those games, BTW. And spoiled? Well, since I've built every computer I've ever owned except this latest one, I guess I have the right to be. So next time leave out the cheap insults. Charles 22...thanks for the tip..I'll play with 'em and see what happens...

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Post #: 9
- 8/26/2001 1:16:00 PM   
FunkyMonkey

 

Posts: 24
Joined: 8/24/2001
Status: offline 		Is it normal for a typical battle in the game to last about three hours? I just played German vs Polish in the long campaign. All Polish did mostly was to buy like 50 infantry so it took me quite a while to kill them all.

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Post #: 10
- 8/26/2001 5:01:00 PM   
john g

 

Posts: 984
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: college station, tx usa
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:
Is it normal for a typical battle in the game to last about three hours? I just played German vs Polish in the long campaign. All Polish did mostly was to buy like 50 infantry so it took me quite a while to kill them all.
When I last played a WWII campaign, the games took a minimum of 3 turns to a maximum of 34. Depending on how fast you deploy and how fast you run your turns your time may vary. I think I spent anywhere from an hour to 8-9 hours per battle.
thanks, John.

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Post #: 11
- 8/27/2001 12:02:00 AM   
parusski


Posts: 4804
Joined: 5/8/2000
From: Jackson Tn
Status: offline 		I agree with john g. Most of my battles last in the range of 6 to 8 ours. If you are playing carefully,as a real life commander would do, then this is about right. It takes time to send out scouts(not to fast) followed my tanks and or infantry(your preference). I take my time so as to avoid unecessary losses. This is more time consuming than racing your units to the limit of their movement allowance, but it does cut down on losses. Also, if you have read the tactics guide it is a good idea to attack in two or three places. I set up three forces: two small, well mixed forces and my large core grougp. I move out with the two small forces, hoping to fool the AI into shifting some of their units. After two or three turns i then blast away with my main force. Again, all this does slow things down, but it is very realistic. Dodya.

_____________________________

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman

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Post #: 12
- 8/27/2001 3:23:00 AM   
john g

 

Posts: 984
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: college station, tx usa
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by divetech:
o.k., here goes....I really hate to sound ungrateful to the Matrixgames crew, but has anyone else noticed how darn slow this game seems?
I'm an old fan of SP I, II and III, and what originally drew me into the game wasn't the meticulous OOB accuracy or the exact number of rounds carried by a PzKpfw-IIf, but the exciting flow of the game. All the computer seems to buy now is infantry. And yes..I am aware that most REAL battles were fought this way, but this isn't real...it's a game. Maybe if someone came up with an"AI purchase more Armor" option.....
Actually if you really want to speed things up, you can play timed turns, it even works against the ai. With up to about 2400 points I can get by with 3 min turns. Try playing this way sometime and your adrenaline will really be pumping when you realize you only have 10 seconds left and have half a dozen units to move out of an artillery impact zone.
thanks, John.

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Post #: 13
- 8/27/2001 7:06:00 AM   
bradmbrown

 

Posts: 50
Joined: 7/20/2001
From: The irrelevent north
Status: offline 		I once played a game called "Wellington's Victory." It was on a 4 foot by 8 foot hex map. Had, oh, IIRC, 4000 cut paper counters. After the first couple player turns, we decided to turn the clock on and the movement phase was 30 minutes per player. There were lots of other phases in a move, that was the only one we put the timer on.
We played once a week, on Sunday. A turn or two each visit. The game ended when the Allied Coalition's army morale went kapoot and I was forced to surrendered or endure another thirty or so moves of routing armies. It took us eleven months.
48 sessions.
Approximatley 4 hours per session.
One hundred and ninety-two hours. The year before we tried... played for a couple months, about two hours game time...
A half mile long (in game scale) cat did a run through the French Cavalry on the right and our hearts were broken and it took until the next year for us to decide on playing again (no more cat allowed anywhere near!!!). Couple years later, we fought at Gettysburg, Terrible Swift Sword. 13 months. No cat. This game is not slow. And I am hoping and praying some bright bird out there makes some nice fresh ACV OOBs so I can try out my favourite era on this platform....
Or some Napoleonic (When pigs fly...).

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Post #: 14
- 8/27/2001 7:15:00 AM   
parusski


Posts: 4804
Joined: 5/8/2000
From: Jackson Tn
Status: offline 		Amen General Amnesty, those were the days. Monster games that took a lifetime to play. Played the ones you mentioned. Also Campaign for North Africa, Flat Top and any other monster I could get my hands on. Playing SPWAW is such a thrill because we do not have to determine LOS, check the charts for terrain, movement, roll the dice...blah, blah, blah...It's a great world. Dodya

_____________________________

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman

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Post #: 15
- 8/27/2001 12:35:00 PM   
Kinja

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 8/11/2001
From: Long Island, N.Y.
Status: offline 		Ah General, such fond memorys! I believe it was "Battle of Nations" that my then 3 year old son wiped out after about 3 months of play. The weeks spent playing "Flattop", double blind with a ref. The computer has improved wargamming and taken a lot of the tedium out of tables and charts. It has taken away the problem of dealing with large stacks of counters. I don't think the pace of this game is bad at all. plays very well, and has a great feel to it. I enjoy the fact that there are more infantry units present. It takes some of the equipment superiority out of the equation. You can't just buy a number of superior armor units and expect to win. I will admit that when I came back to this game a few weeks ago I was caught napping by the infantry heavy AI. At first I was a bit put off by the lack of enemy armor, but as I played on I realized that it was now a much better game and a better reflection of combat in the era it represents.

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Post #: 16
- 8/27/2001 5:41:00 PM   
Halgary

 

Posts: 52
Joined: 6/4/2001
From: Oulu, Finland
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by divetech:
o.k., here goes....I really hate to sound ungrateful to the Matrixgames crew, but has anyone else noticed how darn slow this game seems?
I'm an old fan of SP I, II and III ...
Buy smaller core. I am currently playing two different long campaigns. One with Americans, (2 tank co's, 3 infantry co's + artillery and misc units) and one with germans (3 platoons of infantry, 5 tanks and 2 AA-halftracks). Mission with americans lasts about 4-7 hours, but the game with germans about 20-45mins.

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Post #: 17
- 8/27/2001 7:50:00 PM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by Halgary:
Buy smaller core.

Man you beat me to the punch. I found that lots of battles were degenerating into each side forming a front line from the top to bottom edge and blasting away. I felt that the game was dragging. Then I started a new campaign, on armor & infantry company each with two platoons + some recon, ATGs and arty. Now there is lots of empty space to maneuver in and the tactical decisions are a lot more interesting.

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Post #: 18
- 8/28/2001 1:02:00 AM   
skukko


Posts: 1928
Joined: 10/24/2000
From: Finland
Status: offline 		What you say: I started new WW2 campaign with 5500 purchase points and used only 2500 to get motorized infantry Co and platoon of Med Tanks, section of 222s and two 88AAs. I had helluva fight when I fought with this against tanks and infantry. Sovjet had 72 armored pieces and 3 companies infantry with 2 batteries OFFboard arty. I won 8200 against AIs 1500. Most interesting was that when Í drove 222cars to the AIs backflags and killed its HQ it turned its armor in good shape to conquer back them. I had nothing against them so I let them go from my shaking infantry in their foxholes and took some deep breaths. Just when I did get my wounded out of frontline and did get troops rallied úp Sovjets assaulted again... Might be no tactical brain in AI but nice way to give a break to my almost collapsed lines And battle lasted about 5 hours on large generated map. BTW: My infantry is Finns in German SS... mosh

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salute

mosh

If its not rotten, shoot again

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Post #: 19
- 8/28/2001 2:08:00 PM   
Wild Bill

 

Posts: 6821
Joined: 4/7/2000
From: Smyrna, Ga, 30080
Status: offline 		DiveTech, let me add a few comments to this topic. First of all, feel free to express your opinion. Your point of view is valid. We may not agree with you, but you have the right to state your view. Rabid attacks without reason are not tolerated here, but differing points of view are welcome. We all learn from that. The second point is this. I've worked on every beta of Steel Panthers with SSI, SP Camo, the Gamers Net, and Matrix Games since 1994, SPI, SP2, SP3, all the variant discs, SPWW2 and what I consider the jewel in the crown, Steel Panthers, World at War. I've designed over 1200 scenarios/campaigns in all versions over the last seven years. So I am familiar with what you are talking about. If you'll think back, you'll remember that the number of units in SP1 and SP2 were very limited. I remember in SP1 you could only have one page of units or no more than 26 formations (or a max of about 40-60 units). SP2 was almost the same. The firing routine was also quite different. Now with smaller scenarios and the turns done a little differently, they did play a little faster. But faster is not always better. In SPWAW, there is so much more going on than in any of the predecessors. The scenarios are generally two to three times the size of the earlier ones and some much bigger than that. Also consider the fact that so much more is involved in the routines of moving and firing. So detail, accuracy, and realism take their toll on time. For me that is no sacrifice. One more point. There are many of what I call small "quick play" scenarios. Try some of those. you'll be done in 30 minutes or less. Want some suggestions? There are many in the gamea already. Look for one with 50 units or less on each side. It will play fast. Also generated battles always play slower. Try user designed scenarios. Tell you what, I'll review what is available and add a list of quick play battles right here for you. In conclusion, we have sacrificed a little "speed," but in my opinion what we have gained in fun and realistic fighting far outweighs the former. And those are my thoughts. I certainly respect yours. Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Independent Game Consultant

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Post #: 20
- 8/28/2001 8:04:00 PM   
parusski


Posts: 4804
Joined: 5/8/2000
From: Jackson Tn
Status: offline 		DiveTech, there you have it, from WildBill. If anyone could really answer your complaint it was he. And he is going to list some scenarios. He is truly the god of SPWAW. Good job WB
Dodya

_____________________________

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman

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Post #: 21
- 8/30/2001 10:45:00 PM   
Les_the_Sarge_9_1

 

Posts: 4392
Joined: 12/29/2000
Status: offline 		At the risk of perhaps assuming I was the point of part of the comment Wild Bill made (and I hope I am not assuming to much importance here) I must be fair and say that Divetechs comments to me (the ones specifically addressed to me at least), didnt appear to be any worse than mine. But then as a result of my time in the army, my hide has quite the armor rating where comments are concerned hehe. And as anyone who has read my long winded posts will know, I really am an opinionated individual (it aint easy being me and civil hahahah).

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I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

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Post #: 22
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