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No full campain! - 6/8/2007 6:41:31 AM   
tigercub


Posts: 2004
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From: brisbane oz
Status: offline 		Without the full campaign of the war no way...

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 7:00:52 AM   
CTB123

 

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Joined: 5/27/2002
From: Iowa, USA
Status: offline 		Just like the original, this release of Carriers at War is more of a tactical game.  You play the commander on the scene.

Tony

(in reply to tigercub)
Post #: 2
RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 9:02:53 AM   
Gregor_SSG


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quote:

ORIGINAL: tigercub

Without the full campaign of the war no way...



The Scene: Waters off Midway, June 4th 1942

Worried Junior Officer: Jeez, Admiral Fletcher, the whole Japanese navy is out there somewhere! Aren't you worried?

Admiral Fletcher: Heck no, son. I know the real victory in the Pacific will be won by our overwhelming advantage in material, as embodied by the new fleet carriers that are even now being built. The Battle of Midway is a mere detail, and bound to be dull and unexciting compared to the struggles of Rosie the Riveter and all the other folks in the shipyards and factories of our great country.

Gregor


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See http://www.ssg.com.au and http://www.ssg.com.au/forums/
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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 3:28:56 PM   
SlapBone


Posts: 269
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From: Houston, TX
Status: offline 		Lol...

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 4:18:07 PM   
von Curow

 

Posts: 89
Joined: 6/20/2000
From: Plymouth (Massachusetts)
Status: offline 		What no coffee-spewing emoticon? Fine, just a hearty LOL for Gregor, then.

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 6:41:47 PM   
David Sandberg


Posts: 43
Joined: 10/16/2003
From: Minnesota
Status: offline 		Heehee! Well said, Adm. Gregor. :)

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 6:53:03 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tigercub
Without the full campaign of the war no way...


At this scale... ??

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 7:14:16 PM   
bradfordkay

 

Posts: 8683
Joined: 3/24/2002
From: Olympia, WA
Status: offline 		For the full war campaign, buy War In The Pacific. For an in-depth look at particular carrier battles, buy Carriers At War.

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 7:19:18 PM   
Gargantou


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quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

For the full war campaign, buy War In The Pacific. For an in-depth look at particular carrier battles, buy Carriers At War.
Well, the old Carriers at War were far from REALISTIC per-say in all honesty, they were more focused on user-friendliness rather than being super-historically accurate, if you want a REALLY accurate in-depth look at carrier battles, I recommend Grigsby's old Carrier Strike game+addon.

(in reply to bradfordkay)
Post #: 9
RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 7:28:39 PM   
Froonp


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From: Marseilles, France
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gargantou
Well, the old Carriers at War were far from REALISTIC per-say in all honesty, they were more focused on user-friendliness rather than being super-historically accurate, if you want a REALLY accurate in-depth look at carrier battles, I recommend Grigsby's old Carrier Strike game+addon.

I wonder why you say that, about CAW being far from realistic. What was not realistic particulary ?

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 7:59:46 PM   
Gargantou


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gargantou
Well, the old Carriers at War were far from REALISTIC per-say in all honesty, they were more focused on user-friendliness rather than being super-historically accurate, if you want a REALLY accurate in-depth look at carrier battles, I recommend Grigsby's old Carrier Strike game+addon.

I wonder why you say that, about CAW being far from realistic. What was not realistic particulary ?
I have no idea how this new edition is, I was merely talking about the old series, I have both CAW1 and 2 with their respective addons, original, aswell as Grigsby's Carrier Strike, and WHEN -THOSE- GAMES are compared, Carrier Strike is definitely more detailed and realistic but also thus have a steeper learning curve.

If you don't believe me, I recommend you download and try Carrier Strike, it's very old and abandonware these days.

Also, make no mistake, I love my Complete Carriers at War collection, but when compared in terms of depth and detail, Carrier Strike definitely surpasses it, which is no surprise considering it's a Grigsby game, you have heard of say, War in Russia and Pacific War? Both those are Grigsby games.

< Message edited by Gargantou -- 6/8/2007 8:05:21 PM >

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RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 8:22:36 PM   
CTB123

 

Posts: 74
Joined: 5/27/2002
From: Iowa, USA
Status: offline 		Carrier Strike is definitely more detailed, but I'm not sure it can be said it is more realistic. 

Carriers at War plays out very realistically.

You guys do know that there is a new Grigsby carrier game coming, don't you? 

http://www.2by3games.com/devjournal/journal20060713.html



Tony

(in reply to Gargantou)
Post #: 12
RE: No full campain! - 6/8/2007 8:34:34 PM   
Gargantou


Posts: 205
Joined: 4/28/2007
Status: offline 		OMG CTB, I didn't know that, huge thanks for that link, can't wait for that!

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Post #: 13
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 5:19:49 AM   
Texican

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tigercub

Without the full campaign of the war no way...


I have to agree. For me, operational games are best in campaign format, so that your surviving units get repaired, gain experience, get equipped with new planes, then head off to the next battle. This pulls you into the game more. Nothing more disappointing to me than to buy a game and find it consists of a bunch of individual disconnected scenarios.

I know one iteration of the old CAW game had a campaign, not the stupid "Complete Carriers at War" which was not complete, but the earlier version, maybe CAW1 or something. If the Yorktown was lost at Coral Sea, then it didn't appear at Midway.

I can only guess that with the effort Matrix put into making this game, the decision to build in a campaign was sidelined for whatever reasons; a shortcut that will result in my not purchasing this game.

(in reply to tigercub)
Post #: 14
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 5:38:02 AM   
Gregor_SSG


Posts: 681
Joined: 3/6/2003
Status: offline 		Each to their own of course, but no versions of CAW ever had a campaign, and it never stopped huge numbers of gamers from being pulled into the game, as these message boards can attest.

Also, it was SSG who put the effort into making this game, (and there was plenty of that), plus the design decisions behind it, so please don't go blaming Matrix for those.

Gregor

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See http://www.ssg.com.au and http://www.ssg.com.au/forums/
for info and free scenarios.

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Post #: 15
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 5:42:40 AM   
Prince of Eckmühl


Posts: 2459
Joined: 6/25/2006
From: Texas
Status: offline 		@Texican or Tigercub:

Can one of you give our readers an example of a game that works for you in this regard?

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

< Message edited by Prince of Eckmühl -- 6/14/2007 5:44:51 AM >

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 6:40:28 AM   
Texican

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

@Texican or Tigercub:

Can one of you give our readers an example of a game that works for you in this regard?

PoE (aka ivanmoe)


Panzer General.

Now CAW, as just released, may be a fine game, but had Matrix built a semi-linear/semi-dynamic campaign, where your surviving carriers could be upgraded, outfitted with new aircraft, and live onto the subsequent scenarios, they would have designed a hit game like no other. Imagine if after the Coral Sea battle, you are given a choice of fighting at Midway or countering enemy activity in the Aleutian Islands?

Just as cool, would be to have optional stuff happen such as the Taiho is built earlier or a certain prototype fighter squadron is made available a year early. Maybe the Akagi survives Midway and appears later with upgraded anti-aircraft guns. The possibities were endless.

But just playing out individual scenarios until it gets stale? Blahhh

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Post #: 17
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 6:45:29 AM   
Texican

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

Each to their own of course, but no versions of CAW ever had a campaign, and it never stopped huge numbers of gamers from being pulled into the game, as these message boards can attest.

Also, it was SSG who put the effort into making this game, (and there was plenty of that), plus the design decisions behind it, so please don't go blaming Matrix for those.

Gregor


Maybe so, but this game begged for a campaign.

(in reply to Gregor_SSG)
Post #: 18
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 7:29:48 AM   
jazman

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Texican

Maybe so, but this game begged for a campaign.


No, that was you. The game was begging to be played and enjoyed.

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Post #: 19
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 7:51:16 AM   
Adam Parker


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From: Melbourne Australia
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Texican

I can only guess that with the effort Matrix put into making this game, the decision to build in a campaign was sidelined for whatever reasons; a shortcut that will result in my not purchasing this game.


Interesting POV and as Gregor has already explained that this is an SSG game.

That said, CaW best fits the mold described by a friend of mine and Charles Roberts winner Gary Mo Morgan in his board game Flight Leader, when he wrote in his design notes, that Flight Leader is best viewed as "paper tactical air warfare laboratory". In it's digital form CaW IMO is a tactical naval warfare laboratory.

I'm reading Eagle Against the Sun right now (amongst others) and it describes the Naval War College in the late 1930's testing its doctrine ad nauseam by gaming Trafalgar and Jutland!

Same spirit in CaW. Will your doctrine hold up against history, can you change the outcome of each battle, what are the lessons to be learned? That's the challenge CaW is providing and given the nature of the Pacific War with its periods of rest and refit, the scenario approach fits it well.

However Texican, in the spirit of your post, as we're likely not in the business of studying naval warfare for a living we will need variety. Hence, I feel that SSG should focus on expanding the current scenario spread and more so, provide for some randomness and possibly user-input in the composition of a player's TG's and those of the AI in the scenarios currently provided.

That's where the longevity and excitement level of this game will be guaranteed IMO.

< Message edited by Adam Parker -- 6/14/2007 7:53:04 AM >

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 8:28:29 AM   
FAdmiral


Posts: 378
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From: Atlanta,GA, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

For the full war campaign, buy War In The Pacific. For an in-depth look at particular carrier battles, buy Carriers At War.


The day is coming when games like these will be all-in-one. Start at the strategic level
and then go into the tactical level when conditions are right. The 2 above examples
are good choices for this with a little Silent Hunter 4 thrown in for the sub lovers....

JIM


< Message edited by FAdmiral -- 6/14/2007 9:01:24 AM >

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Post #: 21
RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 3:58:28 PM   
Texican

 

Posts: 248
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		I'm not saying designers need to bake in the entire Pacific War, but simply string the existing scenarios into a campaign so that ships suriving prior scenarios can either end up in repairs or participate in a future scenario. If the Lexington survives the Coral Sea, for example, then maybe she's available at Midway or some later scenario.

If you lose too many carriers, too early, then perhaps your order of battle for the next scenario will require you to adopt some non-traditional strategy. Maybe you end up with the Langley (or a crappy lend lease British carrier you buy at the sacrifice of hefty victory points) and a couple of Pearl Harbor battleships and have to figure out how to keep Guadacanal from falling. You may even have to "throw" a scenario in order to build up your ship capacity for subsequent battles.

You could create the campaign like this:

Pearl Harbor --> Coral Sea or Wake Island --> Midway or Aleutian Islands (hypothetical scenario) --> Eastern Solomons --> Santa Cruz --> Marianas or Raid on Truk --> Phillipine Sea --> etc....

See, somewhat linear, but with a couple of "either or" options to give the campaign a semi-dynamic feel and to keep the game fresh.

Games, in my opinion, are more fun and involving when you get to keep your units (ships), upgrade them, and continue with them onto the next scenario. I have little doubt the famous Panzer General game got much of its popularity from its branching campaign format than had it only been released with a bunch of individual scenarios.

Again, I'm not saying the new CAW is a bad game, but I am saying that the addition of a campaign could only make it better. Much, much better.

Could have been the old Carrier Strike game, not CAW, that had the campaign format I'm thinking of.


< Message edited by Texican -- 6/14/2007 3:59:23 PM >

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 4:59:24 PM   
bourbaki

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: FAdmiral

The day is coming when games like these will be all-in-one. Start at the strategic level
and then go into the tactical level when conditions are right. The 2 above examples
are good choices for this with a little Silent Hunter 4 thrown in for the sub lovers....

JIM



i think that day may have already arrived. total rome, total medieval etc are good examples of games that can toggle between strategic and tactical levels.

< Message edited by bourbaki -- 6/14/2007 5:15:15 PM >

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 5:08:40 PM   
Toby42


Posts: 1626
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From: Central Florida
Status: offline 		Campaign at this level doesn't interest me at all!!

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 6:48:49 PM   
82nd Airborne


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From: Coquitlam, B.C., Canada
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Texican



Panzer General.




quote:

ORIGINAL: Texican
Now CAW, as just released, may be a fine game, but had Matrix built a semi-linear/semi-dynamic campaign, where your surviving carriers could be upgraded, outfitted with new aircraft, and live onto the subsequent scenarios, they would have designed a hit game like no other. Imagine if after the Coral Sea battle, you are given a choice of fighting at Midway or countering enemy activity in the Aleutian Islands?


you could actually do this yourself using the editor. Once someone posts how to actually use the thing , it is something that I'd like to try and do. Will take a little book keeping but should be fairly easy to accomplish.

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RE: No full campain! - 6/14/2007 10:32:50 PM   
FAdmiral


Posts: 378
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From: Atlanta,GA, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: bourbaki

quote:

ORIGINAL: FAdmiral

The day is coming when games like these will be all-in-one. Start at the strategic level
and then go into the tactical level when conditions are right. The 2 above examples
are good choices for this with a little Silent Hunter 4 thrown in for the sub lovers....

JIM



i think that day may have already arrived. total rome, total medieval etc are good examples of games that can toggle between strategic and tactical levels.


Yes, it has been done in those games set in olden times but for the WW2 era,
only Pacific Storm has made an attempt. But somebody had to start it off and
the first edition was not to successful. I hope to see a WW2 (world-wide) one
where we have it all. I would not mind (loved this feature) seeing the monthly
resource meeting between leaders that they had in PTO2 where policy was made
for the next month. Now that was a GREAT feature....

JIM

(in reply to bourbaki)
Post #: 26
RE: No full campain! - 6/15/2007 11:03:59 AM   
Adam Parker


Posts: 1848
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From: Melbourne Australia
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Texican

For me, operational games are best in campaign format, so that your surviving units get repaired, gain experience, get equipped with new planes, then head off to the next battle. This pulls you into the game more. Nothing more disappointing to me than to buy a game and find it consists of a bunch of individual disconnected scenarios.


Here's an interesting position as to whether this is feasible, from Mark Herman discussing the focus of his Pacific board game "Empire of the Sun" in 2003:

quote:



One of the interesting phenomenon of the Pacific War is that although the Aircraft carrier was the dominant capital ship, the effectiveness of this system resulted in the opposing navies losing almost their entire initial inventory of this key weapon system. This resulted in the surface actions of late '42 and early 43 until the respective industrial bases began to produce new ones. The (EOTS) game focuses on this military cycle that most games do not represent, because they either look at a much shorter timeline, so it isn't relevant or they take so long to play that you never sense the bigger picture.

-- Source: Consimworld, Empire of the Sun forum, post #23 (my highlighting).


SSI's Pacific General gave it a go but the scale never really fitted and IIRC land fighting filled the many gaps on the seas. Your ideas have merit. Yes I'd like some continuity too but as Mark explains, the Pacific war just wasn't fought that way.

Hope you do change your mind regarding this title. It took me a short while but SSG is off to a solid start with this 1.0 release.

Adam.

(in reply to Texican)
Post #: 27
RE: No full campain! - 6/15/2007 3:47:01 PM   
Warfare1


Posts: 658
Joined: 10/20/2004
Status: offline 		Here is my humble 2 cents worth on the matter:

If it is not possible to implement a campaign system within this type of game system, then that is one thing.

However, this is a game, and personally, I have always enjoyed games more, where one could continue to play with the same units from scenario to scenario.

There could be a campaign system for Nimitz and one for MacArthur and one for the Japanese. Any landings would be generic in nature and be pre-set. The only units that would move from scenario to scenario (if they survived) would be carriers, planes, pilots and a few surface ships (perhaps belonging to the carrier TFs). Everything else would be preset within each of the scenarios that comprise the campaign.

In a campaign that comprises say 5 scenarios, the player could start off with 2 core carrier TFs. The rest of his forces would be auxillary. It would be the players task to achieve victory while maintaining his core forces intact.

At the end of each scenario, the player would be awarded victory points for how well he did. These points would allow for ship repair; obtaining new pilots (inexperienced); new planes; and new ships to replace those lost within the player's core carrier TFs.

Any new pilots/planes; any new sailors on board the ships (to replace casualties); and any new ships would diminish the overall TF experience rating going into the next scenario.

All other forces that are in each successive scenario within the campaign would be placed by the campaign designer, and would be auxillary forces.

This doesn't seem to be overly complicated to me, and would certainly add a whole new dimension to the game. PG (DOS) was doing this 12-15 years ago.

This campaign system could be implemented either as an expansion OR it could be developed for CAW II, along with a random scenario creator.

< Message edited by Warfare1 -- 6/15/2007 3:57:50 PM >

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Post #: 28
RE: No full campain! - 6/15/2007 6:40:02 PM   
Texican

 

Posts: 248
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		Some good ideas.

Just so I can mention, Carrier Strike, I believe, had a campaign system, and was the same basic scale and set of scenarios as are available in CAW. It worked, it was appropriate, and was darn fun. For example, if Yorktown and Lexington BOTH survived Coral Sea, that didn't necessarily mean you had 4 U.S. carriers at Midway. Just maybe one of the 3 carriers you would have might be Lexington (instead of Yorktown, for example).

Having an optional campaign is not as big a problem as folks are trying to make out on this message thread. It'd take some coding effort, of course, but it's certainly not a task that's out of scope. It'd be mostly a linear design, with maybe a couple of "either or" options (in an earlier post "Fight at Midway or Aleutian Islands") just to keep things interesting.

I think you just have a pool of ships and if the scenario calls for picking 3 CV's, for example, out of that pool, then its some random (or not so random) selection. If the pool dries up, then maybe you sacrifice victory points to get a lease on a British CV, or maybe you're just out of luck and have to figure out how to win with surface ships until the new carriers are built.

Perhaps, if you choose to upgrade a carrier to better AA armament or a squadron of those new Hellcat fighters, then that carrier sits out a scenario and is "not available in the pool" temporarily. There could be some very cool ideas implemented.

(in reply to Warfare1)
Post #: 29
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