Charles2222
Posts: 3993
Joined: 3/12/2001 Status: offline
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On a smoke-related note, I've been campaigning with SPWW2 quite a lot recently, and for campaigners it's interesting how differently the game plays. In the case of smoke grenades, they seem to have more of it, but the smoke clouds disappear quicker. It also seems as though the AI uses it FAR less when retreating infantry. It's also pretty neat to see the AI occassionally screen off my killing zones with mortar smoke bombardment. The smoke 'seems' to never last more then 3 turns, which is MUCH better then the seemingly 10 turn or even entire battle length that some SPWAW smoke seems to have. It's pretty neat to have a killing zone screened off, and then have to decide whether movement is justified out of those positions, or just waiting it out.
I also like the fact that the AI's infantry isn't wasting time (and my patience) on firing on tanks when they don't have AT weapons that could actually counter the tank at that range(but watch out when they do). For some reason knocking Polish or Finnish infantry to 2 or 3 losses, alongside other fire to suppress them, doesn't seem to work very well, as inevitably, just as they won't fire on tanks outside any AT weapon, they will also plaster any infantry which I moved last to within their range.
Anyway, I think SPWAW would improve for adopting SPWW2's smoke grenade treatment, where there's more of it available, it's just that it's used sparingly on the infantry end, while it's used to some affect on the artillery end (in which case isn't too dominating, because it doesn't have the semi-permanent status SPWAW smoke seems to carry).
On a peculiar sidenote, and it just may be because of my style of play, but if your infantry unit gets clobbered and loses say half their men and then tries to protect themselves with smoke, though they do have more smoke to use, which 'could' be a downside, the SPWW2 infantry for some reason or another always seems to retain something of a pinned suppression every turn. You will never seem them at zero suppression at the start of a turn when injured fairly badly, so though they will have more smoke to screen themselves, they somewhat just delay the inevitable if they are low rally such as the Russkies which I'm playing, have. So in such a situation, the odds of them getting out of a bad spot like that aren't too good, but the Russkie player smokes on in the hopes that the rally will work and he can vacate or get a fire brigade response to rescue him via armor perhaps. Interesting anyway. I sure would wish SPWAW would mimic the SPWW2 smoke approach, it really is a fun aspect.
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