The Great War: Western Front

[Tamas]

I will say the more time I spend with it the more I like it. 

I don't think any of the issues it currently has are fundamental to the game's design.  This is a game that can be improved by balance patching and bugfixing and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of that.

Agreed. Having re-fought the same 4-to-1 battle a few times, I have revised my strategy of just how big an overwhelming force must be to, well, overwhelm. e.g. for a first couple of tries I thought the solution would be a methodical approach where I would aim for something like a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 numerical advantage only and instead obliterate what I can by artillery.

Well, that's way too expensive against the AI's supply bonus. The key was, in a way, to learn from AI attacks - on my initial frontal attack, I did aim to suppress via arty of course but I also made sure to have at least 4 infantry units attacking each of the enemy's. This managed to overwhelm them, and with keeping my artillery use spare I had enough supplies left for a second wave to roll up the rest of the enemy positions in a number of phases. Still got a bit close at the very end, but managed a wipeout.

Now it's time to face the over-inflated French attacks I guess!

[W8taminute]

^What difficulty level are you playing Tamas?

The default one (Soldier, I think).

Thank you Tamas.  That is the same difficulty I am playing.  I have not see what you describe but I only fought two small battles in the campaign so far.  I'll pay attention and see what the AI is doing when I fight a larger battle.

[SirAndrewD]

^God I hope you are correct in that last paragraph.

Looks to be true. 

Some EaW modders pointed out that the game uses .meg files, which are the same file types EaW used. 

They tried a few of the modding tools for EaW and a few of them worked right out of the box in at least extracting the files and viewing their contents. 

Some tweaking of the mod tools should yield good results.

EaW was so moddable I even made a danged mod for it myself.   I'd be shocked to see a game released today with that much modability but it does seem to be Petroglyph's style.

[Gusington]

 

The WWI eastern front beckons...but I have a feeling that will be the next release from the studio.

Odd question but I haven't seen it discussed anywhere: are mounted cavalry (horseback) represented anywhere in this game?

Since a major focus is the tech tree and advancing in it, I am hoping mounted cavalry can be recruited and used at the very beginning of the war in 1914.

[SirAndrewD]

Odd question but I haven't seen it discussed anywhere: are mounted cavalry (horseback) represented anywhere in this game?

Since a major focus is the tech tree and advancing in it, I am hoping mounted cavalry can be recruited and used at the very beginning of the war in 1914.

No cavalry unfortunately. 

The game begins just after the Christmas truce so the battle of the frontiers isn't in.

Also, there's sadly no visual progression of infantry from 14-18.   Everyone is in their 1918 uniform, helmet and gear from day 1.

[Gusington]

Oh 

dammit

It  must start around the Christmas truce because of the big visual differences in everything from August 1914 onward, even in the short time between August and December 1914.

Graphical flourishes like visual progression will be modded in the short term with the game being so mod friendly...

[Gusington]

Oh and maybe Battle of the Frontiers DLC, forthcoming??

[W8taminute]

I think supply has a lot to do with how many corps are involved in battle.  The Germans launched two 9 corps attacks against a 2 star hex of mine defended only with 2 corps.  I lost against both attacks because I ran out of supply even though I was careful not to overspend.  Defensive artillery fire really burns through supply quickly as does placing machine gun nests. 

The Germans were able to pour wave after wave of seemingly endless infantry companies accompanied with a lot of artillery. 

I still don't really understand how money and supplies work in this game so it is too early for me to conclude the AI gets massive bonuses in supply.  What I saw last night seemed plausible. 

[Sir Slash]

What about morale W8? Does loosing all those men affect the morale of the next endless wave?

[Pete Dero]

I don't have the game but looking at videos makes me think artillery is laser guided and arrives in seconds.

[W8taminute]

What about morale W8? Does loosing all those men affect the morale of the next endless wave?

If you're talking about losing morale from losses within the battle not that I've noticed.  If you mean losing morale for the subsequent battle then yes.  I did notice that my men started off on the field with slightly less morale than they had in the first battle. 

I don't have the game but looking at videos makes me think artillery is laser guided and arrives in seconds.

I've only got about 4 hours of game time in but I agree in that arty arrives in seconds.  Laser guided?  No.  More men are killed a lot faster running into machine guns then being caught out in the open under an artillery blast.  At least that's what I've noticed both in dealing out damage and taking it from the enemy. 

Honestly I think certain things happen in this game not so much to mimic history precisely but to have an enjoyable gaming experience. 

As usual, hardcore grognards are going to eviscerate a game because the bullet casings are exactly 0.025 millimeters shorter than what they were in real life.  Casual gamers are going to cry rivers of water because the game is too hard and it's not like other RTS games like age of empires whahaahahaha.  Then you got the middle of the road gamers who love their history and their gaming and can live with exceptions to the rules. 

[Sir Slash]

I can deal with shorter bullet casing for True Love. 

[SirAndrewD]

I couldn't spend any time with it today because..I know, I was actually working.  Boooo.

But the release day patch notes did address fixing the AI Fog of War bug (apparently AI balloons were seeing everything) and some of the supply and cost issues. 

I'll dig into it a bit tonight after I watch a show with the girlfriend.

[Pete Dero]

Great War: Western Front is out now -  use your XP pack voucher to save 20% on either edition today :

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/the-great-war-western-front-pc/  (must be logged in to show extra discount)


This game is just not for me.  Seeing artillery land each time exactly on the spot, 3 seconds after you ordered it, is something I find hard to accept.   And sending 4 waves to certain destruction so a fifth wave might succeed is not something I like to do.

WWI was brutal and very lethal but I feel this game is even more deadly for your troops.


@SirAndrewD : where can we watch the show with your girlfriend in it  .

[Destraex]

Great War: Western Front is out now -  use your XP pack voucher to save 20% on either edition today :

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/the-great-war-western-front-pc/  (must be logged in to show extra discount)


This game is just not for me.  Seeing artillery land each time exactly on the spot, 3 seconds after you ordered it, is something I find hard to accept.   And sending 4 waves to certain destruction so a fifth wave might succeed is not something I like to do.

WWI was brutal and very lethal but I feel this game is even more deadly for your troops.


@SirAndrewD : where can we watch the show with your girlfriend in it  .

Part of the futility of ww1. I think that the troop types are too simplistic, no uniform changes etc.
Still I will get it when it is on sale, I just don't have a burning desire to play it. I think I figured out why. I think that a ww1 game like this really needs the ability to zoom out along an entire front in real time and zoom into particular parts to micromanage attacks of it while the whole front line is in operation in real time at once. You want to be able to make calls as to where re-enforcements go andd how the attacks are carried out the way the actual generals did it, that is to say by moving your troops into terrain and lining them up according to logistics capacity and the terrains capability to handle troops, building paths behind the lines and making sure artillery and troops are supplied not this crude hex stuff. You want to do trench raiding and intel gathering that is more than a dice role or a special ability as it is currently in game. I think I basically want a more scourge of war style game, just faster and with zoom out to cover large movements and logistics, pathing and that sort of planning. But I want to see this depicted properly with physics, not with the hearts of iron style underlying hexes and terrain stat modifiers.

Currently tiny snippets of the fronts that the tactical battles take place in that are isolated from the larger strategy of the attacks don't do it for me. Still this is the best ww1 game I have yet seen and is definitely on my list.

I now have a vision as to how this game should have been. The devs probably had the same vision and decided they did not have the resources anyways.

Did we ever find out if multiplayer was any good. I hear it is just skirmishes with no context, which would be very boring indeed. Not enough for both players to do I would not think?