Two new titles dropped....both individually priced at $39.95
New Naval Campaigns Wolf Pack seems interesting....
http://www.johntillersoftware.com/NavalCampaigns/Wolfpack.html?mc_cid=a93dd79bae&mc_eid=cddf15686c
Historically, Great Britain being an island nation has been one of it's great strengths. However, with the development of the submarine, that strength also exposed a vulnerability. Britain was absolutely dependent on its maritime lifeline, a lifeline the Germans had nearly severed in the Great War, and one they would attack with even more fury in the Second World War.
Wolfpack covers the battles over that lifeline, not only from the perspective of the U-Boats, but also that of the escort commanders on their cold and lonely vigils in the North Atlantic.
Can you bring down the transports that carried the very life blood of Britain? Can you keep the hunters of the sea away, and keep your charges safe?
Scenarios
50 scenarios ranging from small single submarine actions to massed wolfpack attacks.
Scenarios also highlight the role of air power, both land and air based.
Two campaigns are included, one on the career of the legendary ace Gunther Prien, and the other highlighting the changes in the Battle of the Atlantic from 1940-45.
Features
Wolfpack uses a real-time game engine that can be run from 1x to 10x real-time and has the ability to pause.
Players can play each scenario against the computer A/I or using network play.
The British player has access to the full ASW arsenal, including Depth Charges, Depth Charge Projectors and Hedgehogs, while the Germans have innovative equipment like Snorkels and Homing Torpedoes.
A powerful Scenario Editor and Order of Battle Editor are included so that players can design their own scenarios of historical or hypothetical situations.
Shore terrain is included for Scapa Flow, the Kola Inlet, Gibraltar, Aruba and the North Carolina Coast.
And Wellington's Peninsular War....
http://www.johntillersoftware.com/NapoleonicBattles/WellingtonWar.html?mc_cid=a93dd79bae&mc_eid=cddf15686c
The Peninsular War was one of the longest and most drawn-out campaigns of the Napoleonic War; a piece of Imperial regime change designed to close off the last European ports open to British trade, which instead developed into the "Spanish Ulcer" that sapped the strength of Napoleon's empire and left him to fight a two-front war that would ultimately destroy him. The second title covering the "Spanish Ulcer", covers all the major actions left out of Bonaparte's Peninsular War and quite a few minor ones as well.
Firstly, that of late-1808 into January 1809 when Napoleon intervened in the Peninsula in person and led the veterans of the Grande Armée to join the survivors of his failed first invasion attempt and sought to crush the armies of the Spanish Juntas and the British under Sir John Moore who sought to come to their aid. The climax of this campaign was the French capture of Madrid and Moore's posthumous victory at Corunna which bought time to evacuate his troops. The next campaign is that by the French to secure Eastern Spain, culminating, after a series of initial setbacks, with Suchet's advance from Saragossa to Valencia over the course of 1809-1812, snapping up fortresses and defeating the armies that were sent to cover them. His victory, however, was never entirely complete and 1813-1814 in this theatre saw British troops land to aid the resurgent Spanish forces. The last two campaigns represent Wellington's attempts to liberate Spain. The first of these, in 1812, saw what was arguably his greatest battlefield victory at Salamanca but ultimately ended with overstretch and a dangerous retreat back to Portugal. The second, launched in the summer of 1813, saw the combined French armies crushed at Vitoria followed by an advance that eventually took the allies over the Pyrenees to Bayonne and Toulouse. Also included in the game are a small number of standalone battles that fall outside the main four campaigns, most notably the 1806 Battle of Maida – fought in Italy rather than Spain, this nevertheless saw many future Peninsular commanders and was the first British victory against the French since the conclusion of the Egyptian campaign five years previously.
Over the past 25 years, I bet I have posted over a dozen times to a dozen different forums about how much I would like to see a non-sim sort of computer wargame focused on U-boats in the Atlantic. This title finally appears to be the game I have always wanted.
Interesting. Wolfpack might definitely be worth a look...
I would be very interested to hear what people think of Wolfpack. I'm not a fan of the JT "Naval Campaigns" system, but I'm willing to give it another try, especially given the subject matter.
I'd be interested in Wolfpack also, going to need some game play video though.
The manual is available to read
There seem to be additions to the previous games to account for specific submarine actions - they seem good - but never really got on with this system - I think it was being very interested in carrier warfare but the weird requirement to manually launch torpedoes. Could get very hectic.
Also little info about how campaigns work.
Will have to think about his one.
Really want to pull the trigger on wolfpack, but have been burning my credit card with a lot of purchases lately...very intrigued by just being able to simulate controlling a sub at this level. I guess the good news is Tiller games never go on sale so no rush to get any kind of deals, so I guess I focus on other things for now and hopefully by the time I am ready there will have been reviews to confirm if worth picking up:)
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on December 01, 2019, 07:28:17 AM
Really want to pull the trigger on wolfpack, but have been burning my credit card with a lot of purchases lately...very intrigued by just being able to simulate controlling a sub at this level. I guess the good news is Tiller games never go on sale so no rush to get any kind of deals, so I guess I focus on other things for now and hopefully by the time I am ready there will have been reviews to confirm if worth picking up:)
Yep never any deals. I bought Tiller games religiously but with the slew of recent releases I am now for the first time in my life four games down. Its a completionist thing but thats a slew of money in one go and have so much else to get on with.
Both of these are very intriguing.
The adjustment of ASW weapons in Wolfpack, could be very interesting.
RN Captain Johnie Walker's tactic of the "creeping attack", where one or two ships kept their speed slow, so sonar would work better, and they would coach in the attack ship, gave the escorts a much greate chance of success.
Replicating tactics is often a very hard thing to do in game design.
Also, how would the closing of the Air Gap be represented in the campaign, and would convoys have blimps and VLR planes like the Liberators?
The campaigns are more a "tour of battles" than an operational campaign. All the actions are tactical.
That said, there are blimps, and various aircraft (Liberators included).
The way the 1940-45 campaign is structured is that you have a battle from each year. If the German doesn't lose (that is to say, he survives! :2funny:) twice, he wins the campaign. Otherwise, the British win.
Mike Cox did the heavy work, I just helped finish it up, but I did add a few scenarios and that campaign, so blame me for those bits.
Quote from: GaryMc on December 01, 2019, 09:22:47 AM
The campaigns are more a "tour of battles" than an operational campaign. All the actions are tactical.
That said, there are blimps, and various aircraft (Liberators included).
The way the 1940-45 campaign is structured is that you have a battle from each year. If the German doesn't lose (that is to say, he survives! :2funny:) twice, he wins the campaign. Otherwise, the British win.
Mike Cox did the heavy work, I just helped finish it up, but I did add a few scenarios and that campaign, so blame me for those bits.
Just curious, did the team record and videos or write up any AAR's for it? Would love to see them.
Nothing I know of. It's unlikely that I can do a video (old system, small town internet cramp my video style.) I can work on a short AAR for y'all, but it'll likely take me a bit. Today's a work day.
Quote from: GaryMc on December 01, 2019, 09:45:39 AM
Nothing I know of. It's unlikely that I can do a video (old system, small town internet cramp my video style.) I can work on a short AAR for y'all, but it'll likely take me a bit. Today's a work day.
That would be great when you have time....thanks.
Quote from: GaryMc on December 01, 2019, 09:45:39 AM
Nothing I know of. It's unlikely that I can do a video (old system, small town internet cramp my video style.) I can work on a short AAR for y'all, but it'll likely take me a bit. Today's a work day.
Gary-Is there any ability of actually being able to modify the game to actually recreate the WWII Atlantic war? While Wofpack's "Tour of Battles" concept sounds interesting as a tactical resolution engine, I would be
extremely interested in a game where you actually had to fight the 1939-45 war in the Atlantic, juggling resources, repairing ships and resolving the convoy battles tactically. Something along the line of "Steel Wolves" by Compass games for the strategic layer, married with Wolfpack for the tactical layer
No, I'd also like to see games with a more operational bent, but that's not what this one is. The current campaign engine doesn't allow me to track lost ships from battle to battle for instance, which is why I couldn't do a full ONS-5 campaign (which still isn't what you're looking for, but to give you an idea.)
looking forward to the AAR, thanks for doing it.
I am interested in Wolfpack as well, but a little hesitant.
The game I really want to play would be something like a computer version of Compass Game's Steel Wolves, with tactical battles thrown in. Basically managing your U-boat fleet and deciding where to concentrate patrols.
Wolfpack sounds like it might just be a bunch of tactical battles strung together to make a campaign (just like every other JTS campaign game). Did I get that wrong?
No, that's pretty accurate as to what the campaign is. As I said, I'd like to see more operational naval games, but this isn't that.
Thanks for doing this...can't wait until see what happens when the shooting starts....may not be able to hold off on this one:)
I was interested enough to check it out. Seems we're still waiting for an operational
version of the Battle of the Atlantic. Stunning that it hasn't been done before now.
I'd buy that in a heartbeat. Doesn't sound like Wolfpack is the game I'm looking for.
Quote from: gregb41352 on December 01, 2019, 06:50:12 PM
I was interested enough to check it out. Seems we're still waiting for an operational
version of the Battle of the Atlantic. Stunning that it hasn't been done before now.
I'd buy that in a heartbeat. Doesn't sound like Wolfpack is the game I'm looking for.
I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been done yet either. There are some excellent tactical subsims (Silent Hunter 3 and 4, for instance). There really hasn't been a good operational level battle of the Atlantic computer game. If someone were to make one that incorporated tactical surface and submarine warfare, I would be a definite buyer. In terms of board games, Steel Wolves and Silent War come closest to doing the Atlantic and Pacific submarine war, but I would like something that combined them with the tactical game that "Wolfpack" seems to offer.
Wolfpack video on Youtube. I have not watched it yet but wanted to link it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo0APRspFDE
I'd actually like to see this bolted onto a subsim. Like Empires is to Field of Glory 2.
Quote from: Skoop on December 02, 2019, 11:48:19 PM
I'd actually like to see this bolted onto a subsim. Like Empires is to Field of Glory 2.
Absolutely. Tiller already has a surface (Guadacanal) and naval air (Midway) modeled using this engine. With submarines (Wolfpack), he could do the entire battle of Atlantic at the operational/strategic level. In 2 player. THAT, I would buy in a heartbeat. Heck, I might still buy Wolfpack because it is the only game that models WWII ASW warfare (at least that I'm aware of). But an operational/strategic Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1944 (with a 1945-46 add on with German super-submarines) would definitely get my dollars.
Edit: Followed, of course, by a separate title covering the US submarine campaign against Japan.....
Edit 2: Somehow I forgot to mention the Mediterranean 1939-1942 title..... :smitten:
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of this being bolted onto a sim like Wolfpack(the sim on steam) or the game Uboat(on steam) or even one of the silent hunter games.
Quote from: Skoop on December 03, 2019, 03:08:09 PM
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of this being bolted onto a sim like Wolfpack(the sim on steam) or the game Uboat(on steam) or even one of the silent hunter games.
Something like that is being done over at Subsim, using "Steel Wolves" as the campaign engine and Wolfpack for the tactical. See https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=297. I was part of the "Wolves in the Pacific" and "Wolves at War" which tried doing something related back in 2010 with SH3 and SH4. It was a lot of fun.
I'm not sure Tiller games could bolt their naval campaigns engine onto a tactical game like SH3 or Wolfpack. Sliterine was able to do it with FoGII and FoG Empires, but they are the only company I've ever heard that has been able to get two different developers to weld their games together into one system. More likely, Tiller would have to develop his own campaign overlay and port the Naval Campaigns system into it.
I wonder if a realistic sub warfare simulation at the theater level would be a satisfactory gaming experience? Consider the real WW II experience:
1. The Allies only knew if they sank a sub about half the time, especially when it was done by the air force.
2. The Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic as much by reducing the time U-boats spent in combat zones as by sinking them. How much fun is it to just make a U-boat dive ten times a day while transiting the Bay of Biscay?
3. A huge part of the success in the struggle came from the evolution of doctrines, and their applications in tandem. Consider: A) Putting 10cm radar on a plane overflying a convoy helped but didn't have a major impact; B) Putting 10cm radar on a plane overflying a convoy and then using it to route escorts to specific locations was hugely effective; C) Escort carriers (CVEs) were useless in attacking surface targets but brilliant at convoy escort duty; D) King's refusal to put Allied ships in convoys on the Eastern Seaboard of the US in the first six months of the war almost cost the Allies the Battle of the Atlantic; E) If Hitler had been willing to produce U-boats instead of the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, things might have ended totally differently; F) American refusal to use British intelligence abut U-boat locations and destinations for the first 12 months of the war had a disastrous impact on the American contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic; G) Getting plane-basing rights in the Azores did a lot to close the last viable hunting grounds for U-boats in the Atlantic.
How do you simulate all that stuff?
I'm not saying a theater-level sub warfare game couldn't be fun. But, it would be extremely hard to package the real ebb and flow of doctrine and technology and politics into a satisfying game experience.
I think it could be very interesting, but I honestly think a tactical layer would overload it. I think the BIG thing that you would end up putting your turn to turn (week to week?) focus is on routing and positioning on both sides. Allies try to route convoys in safe ways, and Germans try to intercept. It would need a very robust SigInt system for both sides, since both sides were reading way more mail than the other side had any real idea.
It could be done in an interesting way, but it's certainly not something I'm working on :)