Rasputitsa
Posts: 2903
Joined: 6/30/2001 From: Bedfordshire UK Status: offline
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I have been playing this game from the beginning, I have had no trouble with any downloads and used all of the updated versions. I am aware of the various problems in the game, but have still enjoyed playing, some scenarios are better than others, Fall Gelb has been the basis for most of my games, but I would like to use 'Gotterdammerung' as the basis for an Allied invasion strategy, knowing that it will have to be map edited to fix some problems. I keep all of my saved games, moving some of them to a separate archive to avoid cluttering the game screen, but this gives me intermediate starting points for new games, effectively new scenarios. Modifying files has been easy, in notepad, or Excel, once you understand some of the workings of the game. Project this evening is to rename the Atlantic sea zones, some of which are too cluttered, I know that many will say that such things should not be necessary, but being realistic, nothing is ever perfect and it's nice to have such an open game system that can be tweaked. Most things that I don't agree with in the game can be fixed by modifying the scenario 'const' file and by imposing house rules to make the game more challenging when playing against the AI. The only major problem I can't easily modify is convoy routing, but this is not a game breaker and I expect that it can be rectified. The map and unit preferences, plus some mods imported from other players and SOP makes the game look really good, although this is personal opinion, others will have different tastes. The game has been playable from the beginning, not perfect, but playable, I know other people's experience has been different, see the discussion on CTDs in the Tech section, I don't know why some people have not been able to get the game to run, whilst I have had some CTDs I have always been able to get new games and earlier saved games to run. One aspect is that there are several undocumented features and the game gets much better as you discover what it can do. Unexplained events occur, which can be frustrating, but I consider the uncertainty that the game generates is part of the realism, the historical characters did not always know what was going to happen next. We all know the timeline of the actual events and what to expect, but how many times must the actual commanders have yelled '****** that shouldn't have happened'. I am playing situations that I've never read about in the history books and don't want to know what's coming next. I am fairly relaxed about the balance of the game, recognising that it's trying to cover from 1939 to the end of the war and from the Atlantic to the Urals, it would be impossible to get this completely right and it's not surprising the game system creaks. The conclusion is that the game is quite good and can be made a whole lot better, but why rely on the opinions of others, give it a try.
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"In politics stupidity is not a handicap" - Napoleon “A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything” - Napoleon “Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress" - Napoleon
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