Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (Full Version)

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CrazyOkie -> Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/12/2010 4:25:56 PM)

A newbie to these forums, but not entirely to wargames - although it's been a long time. We're talking early 90's, Norm Koger, Conflict in the Middle East/Korea. I'm thinking of buying an SSG wargame- I remember their quality from way back then (the original Carriers at War was a great game). What would people recommend? Battles In Italy seems to have the most user-made scenarios, but Kharkov has a newer system (which sounds intriguing). Battlefront seems to be the middle ground.

Recommendations? [&:]

Thanks in Advance!



JSS -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/15/2010 10:44:17 AM)

Any of the three is a good selection (you've laid out the advantages of each very accurately). My recommendation would be Kharkov as it is the best game engine of the three (IMHO). Battles in Italy would also be an excellent choice given its selection of available scenarios.



htuna -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/15/2010 12:44:41 PM)

Kharkov is one scenario 16 turns long.... luckily, I think they did give 3 more with the patch... BII there is a ton of user scenarios on the SSG site!.. lol it's funny the first game I played for BII was not a BII scenario, but the Kharkov Scenario on the BII site.. and I thoroughly enjoyed it...

Still new to the Kharkov combat system, so still not sure on which Combat system I like better..



Alan Sharif -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/15/2010 3:18:18 PM)

Kharkov is the best game engine and more scenarios will follow so I should go with that. I believe many old SSG scenarios will be remade to work in the Kharkov game engine.   



jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/15/2010 9:13:45 PM)

I would strongly recommend the Kharkov system, as it has many improvements over the earlier systems, and is the system that will be used for all future games of the "Decisive Battles" type. All future scenario packs will require the Kharkov engine, and the engine will be updated periodically so that it will never become obsolete. Kharkov (when fully patched) includes 4 separate battles, including Operation Husky from Battles in Italy, all of which are good games, all of which have several variants, and all of which have an AI. The first Kharkov expansion , Across the Dneper, is now available and is an excellent scenario.

Eventually all of the SSG Battles in Italy scenarios will be remade into the Kharkov system and provided as part of the game, presumably in future patches. There is also the Soltsy scenario which is a nice little scenario and can serve as a simplified introduction to the system, since not all of the engines' features are utilized in Soltsy.

Of course Battle In Italy does have about 25 created scenarios, which is a very nice feature (though not all of them have an AI, and it may become increasing difficult to find opponents for an older system). Still, there are not likely to be many more scenarios created for Battles in Italy, and there will almost certainly be more expansions and scenarios for Kharkov.

Battlefront has some interesting battles which are not likely to be available in the Kharkov system any time soon, so it is worth considering if you like battles on a smaller scale, using smaller units. While Kharkov is designed to handle battles on a variety of scales, SSG has (rather to my chagrin) so far declined to utilize the smaller scales, so Battlefront is currently the only choice for those.

Overall though I think Kharkov would be your best choice.



pvthudson01 -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/20/2010 5:31:54 PM)

Dang so Battlefront is kind of phased out? At the time that was the newest, biggest direction they were going in and they made such a big deal   out of it

I like the smaller unit ideas, sometimes I get sick of this entire front stuff



jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/20/2010 7:02:45 PM)

I agree with you that Battlefront is still a very good system, even though Kharkov does have some nice improvements over it. Battlefront has some very interesting battles, and since SSG declines to take advantage of the ability of the Kharkov engine to do battles at any scale, I think Battlefront is still a reasonable purchase. Perhaps at some point SSG will see fit to update it or re-release it with the Kharkov engine. We can only hope! [;)] [:)]



wodin -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (5/20/2010 7:21:43 PM)

I too wish they had carried on improving the Battlefront mechanics. I prefer smaller units aswell.

Such a shame. Maybe they will make a load of scenarios and release them as an expansion pack....or maybe not.

For longevity and to get all the new bells and whistles buy Kharkov.



Richard III -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (6/9/2010 2:00:28 AM)

Agreed !!

IMHO it` still a great system with an truly vicious AI. The problem is they can`t/won`t get it to work over 32 turns it seems, which is needed for the large operational battles like BIN or full a BII Campaign.

If you play the 76 turn version of BIN you can get a feel for how good that would be VS an alive AI.



quote:

ORIGINAL: jeffreys

I agree with you that Battlefront is still a very good system, even though Kharkov does have some nice improvements over it. Battlefront has some very interesting battles, and since SSG declines to take advantage of the ability of the Kharkov engine to do battles at any scale, I think Battlefront is still a reasonable purchase. Perhaps at some point SSG will see fit to update it or re-release it with the Kharkov engine. We can only hope! [;)] [:)]




jjdenver -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (6/11/2010 4:49:28 AM)

If you want long games then for Battles in Normandy there is the On To Paris scenario. I'm about 20 turns deep into that PBEM and it's pretty fun.

For BII I think that Battles for Moscow is quite long and there are others as well.

For Battlefront there was Prokhorovka and Stalingrad - both pretty long I think.

The Husky scenario for Kharkov/ATD2 is long as well - it may be 32 turns, don't recall. Still that's quite long, and I doubt there is a hard cap on number of turns.



mavraamides -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (6/14/2010 3:54:19 PM)

I'm a recent Kharkov purchaser and I just love it. But it seems like BII is such a steal because of all the scenarios that it seems like something to try as well.

If I were to pick up BII, what features would I find missing from the engine other than Areas of Operations?

Does it have the artillery advisor?
Combat advisor?

I'm just trying to get a handle on how much the engine has changed and whether I would find the engine for BII old and clunky after playing Kharkov.



JSS -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (6/19/2010 9:04:02 AM)

You would find the mechanics/interface very similar but the games are a bit different in play.

Big differences are in artillery/airstrikes and overruns during close combat. Movement OP values are handled differently, plus there is an extended move mode in BII... for me this is a huge difference, may be minor to a newer player.

Minor changes are direct fire during close combat and how unit integrity bonus is calculated.

Some specifics:

- artillery/airstrikes in BII are not a stand alone attacks... they are used to add shifts to the close combat... i.e. you must be next to an enemy unit to attack it!
- overruns in BII are odds based (on or off at a given odd in the CRT)
- there is not the addition chance for attacker/defender step losses due to direct fire in BII.
- unit integrity is handled differently (same concept, different rules); all units must be close enough to have integrity bonus (not distance from central unit).

AOs are the other big change as you noted. There are many other differences but those are more subtle IMHO (probably a few I've overlooked too).

JSS



scout1 -> RE: Newbie - Kharkov, Battlefront, or Battles in Italy? (8/2/2010 3:47:11 AM)

BII .... alot of scenario's which keeps a game fresh ....



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