Steel Division 1944 (by wargame red dragon devs) in game trailer and unit stream

[acctingman]

Mind-boggling to me that people play multiplayer on normal speed. I play single-player mostly on bullet time and never faster than very slow. I'm sure I'll speed up a little when I become proficient - I'm only in about my 3rd battle.

Normal speed just doesn't seem to me like it would be fun. There's so much going on that the game gets away from me on very slow.

How do you play mostly on bullet time? I mean, its practically a pause...I play mostly on normal and go down to slow or very slow when my attention must be divided on more than one section of the map...I find bullet time necessary only in the occasional unusual circumstance.

Maybe some people prefer to play the game a little slower? That's great that some people can play this game on faster speeds, I know I wish I could, but bullet speed for me thank you very much! I enjoy the slowish game play at bullet speed. Anything else, at least for me, is just too fast and I don't get to the enjoy the full flavor of the game.  O0

[Jarhead0331]

Mind-boggling to me that people play multiplayer on normal speed. I play single-player mostly on bullet time and never faster than very slow. I'm sure I'll speed up a little when I become proficient - I'm only in about my 3rd battle.

Normal speed just doesn't seem to me like it would be fun. There's so much going on that the game gets away from me on very slow.

How do you play mostly on bullet time? I mean, its practically a pause...I play mostly on normal and go down to slow or very slow when my attention must be divided on more than one section of the map...I find bullet time necessary only in the occasional unusual circumstance.

Maybe some people prefer to play the game a little slower? That's great that some people can play this game on faster speeds, I know I wish I could, but bullet speed for me thank you very much! I enjoy the slowish game play at bullet speed. Anything else, at least for me, is just too fast and I don't get to the enjoy the full flavor of the game.  O0

A little slower? Its a pause for all intents and purposes. I'm not criticizing anyone for their play preference, I think people should play it how they are most comfortable, I'm just curious how someone could play "mostly" at bullet time. It is extremely...EXTREMELY slow.

[glen55]

Mostly, I study the position in bullet time for a minute or two, then advance time at very slow speed for about 10 seconds, maybe 20 seconds if I'm feeling antsy! But some times, I will just kind of study endlessly and the game does indeed advance in bullet time, e.g., if a jeep is moving up the road you can actually see it move! Maybe not quite as wicked quick as the minute hand of a clock, but you can see it~!

I really enjoy the studying the position part.  :)

[jomni]

I'm impatient. The faster the game finishes, the more battles I get to play in a sitting. So normal or a notch slower for me.

I think I know why I'm failing at conquest before. I wasn't bringing in enough commanders for my separate groups. Making them lose ground more easily without the all important buffs. Commander buffs are more cost efficient than buying experienced troops.  So in phase A, I deploy more cheap troops with support of commanders to gain a foothold on important sports. 

Learned a lot by doing the tutorials.

[JasonPratt]

Iirc, bullet time is one game second every thirty real seconds, or 1/30th speed. A thirty minute game at bullet-time would take 15 hours.

I don't think anyone thinks you mean you're taking at least 15 hours (maybe twice or three times that!) to play a match, acctingman -- that's why they're questioning what you said. Very slow would seem to be the slowest feasible speed for playing a whole match.

[acctingman]

Nope, you are correct. I go bullet time when the shit hits the fan (which is often as I learn the game).  O0

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, after editing about half my Turn 5 with Barth last night, I spent the rest of the night polishing my Panzer Fear deck. (I'll need to do the same with my Panzer Scout deck, assuming I keep it at all.) At the composition I showed upthread, it's just too rich without a large starting budget and greater-than-medium income rate. But playing it several ways confirmed that at my usual settings (medium income rate, 250 starting budget) I end up only getting 5 to 8 of the heavies out in a 30 minute game -- and without a lot of support!

That being the case, I've redesigned the deck so that each of the heavies is now a Phase B commander (and the Panthers are actually better than the Tiger E in this game). This way they can provide bonuses to support groups rolling along with them. I have to accept that I'm only going to get out 5 of them per (short) game, and so I should look for relatively cheap support like rolling scouts and those 27-point soft-damage assault guns and some anti-air, and maybe a Panzer 4 and/or Jagdpanzer 4 with each Tiger or Panther commander.

I've also realized that for infantry, I'm better off sending out infantry platoons of 1 Panzerschreck squad, 1 MG42 squad, and 1 elite Panzerfuhrer squad, at the start -- because in the Panzer Lehr division, those things also get equally veteran or elite APCs which serve as mobile MG42 platforms and, for the anti-tank squads, also a small anti-armor gun. This allows me to save my rolling anti-armor scouts for later in Phase A or Phase B: those APCs are a nice force multiplier, and under the right conditions I've seen them survive until well into Phase C.

This new setup went through several versions last night, so I'll report tomorrow (or tonight) on how things go with it. I can still create a variant Panzer Fear deck more along my original lines, for "richer" games. (Longer games wouldn't really count, because the rate of income is just too small to support the waves of heavy armor I wanted to put out. As it is, I may still refine the task force composition back to 4 or maybe even 3 Heavy Commanders to build a task force around.)

[glen55]

If there were a speed halfway between bullet time and very slow, I would probably play at that speed most of the time. But playing at very slow, I don't have time to focus on a sector, I always have to be scanning the whole map. It's too fast for me to run it more than a few seconds at a time.

[Pete Dero]

If there were a speed halfway between bullet time and very slow, I would probably play at that speed most of the time. But playing at very slow, I don't have time to focus on a sector, I always have to be scanning the whole map. It's too fast for me to run it more than a few seconds at a time.

I posted this before for Airland Battle (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=12733.0-)

I installed cheat engine speedhack (single player only !!).  It allows you to slow the game down and even lets you pause it while you can still give orders.  http://www.cheatengine.org/aboutce.php

Cheat Engine is an open source tool designed to help you with modifying single player games running under window so you can make them harder or easier depending on your preference
It comes with a memory scanner to quickly scan for variables used within a game and allow you to change them, but it also comes with a debugger, disassembler, assembler, speedhack, trainer maker, direct 3D manipulation tools, system inspection tools and more.

Download : http://www.cheatengine.org/downloads.php

I suggest you only use the version without Open Candy (it could be considered to be Malware)

Short tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZ2okB8WNQ

Run Cheatengine.exe
Now run the game you want to play  (Wargame games should run in windowed full screen as you need to be able to use Alt-Tab).
Alt tab back to cheatengine.
Select the game process in cheat engine by clicking on the computer icon (the icon will be blinking)
Check enable Speedhack (You can add ingame shortcuts in cheatengine through Edit-settings-shortcuts).
Alt Tab back to the game and play.

[glen55]

If there were a speed halfway between bullet time and very slow, I would probably play at that speed most of the time. But playing at very slow, I don't have time to focus on a sector, I always have to be scanning the whole map. It's too fast for me to run it more than a few seconds at a time.

I posted this before for Airland Battle (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=12733.0-)

I installed cheat engine speedhack (single player only !!).  It allows you to slow the game down and even lets you pause it while you can still give orders.  http://www.cheatengine.org/aboutce.php

Cheat Engine is an open source tool designed to help you with modifying single player games running under window so you can make them harder or easier depending on your preference
It comes with a memory scanner to quickly scan for variables used within a game and allow you to change them, but it also comes with a debugger, disassembler, assembler, speedhack, trainer maker, direct 3D manipulation tools, system inspection tools and more.

Download : http://www.cheatengine.org/downloads.php

I suggest you only use the version without Open Candy (it could be considered to be Malware)

Short tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZ2okB8WNQ

Run Cheatengine.exe
Now run the game you want to play  (Wargame games should run in windowed full screen as you need to be able to use Alt-Tab).
Alt tab back to cheatengine.
Select the game process in cheat engine by clicking on the computer icon (the icon will be blinking)
Check enable Speedhack (You can add ingame shortcuts in cheatengine through Edit-settings-shortcuts).
Alt Tab back to the game and play.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

[jomni]

I played at Normal speed last night and I felt the game was quite slow going.

[sandman2575]

SD44 definitely plays much slower, seems to me, than Wargame. I literally couldn't play Airland Battle without the Speed Hack -- and thank goodness Eugen added game speed controls for Red Dragon.  But with SD44, I find I tend to start Skirmishes on Slow, and once I feel like I have a handle on how the battlefield is developing, I bump it up to Normal.  I still do some panicky Bullet Time pausing when something goes FUBAR, but overall I play on Normal. Feels very manageable to me, in a way Wargame never has at that speed.

[DennisS]

SD44 definitely plays much slower, seems to me, than Wargame. I literally couldn't play Airland Battle without the Speed Hack -- and thank goodness Eugen added game speed controls for Red Dragon.  But with SD44, I find I tend to start Skirmishes on Slow, and once I feel like I have a handle on how the battlefield is developing, I bump it up to Normal.  I still do some panicky Bullet Time pausing when something goes FUBAR, but overall I play on Normal. Feels very manageable to me, in a way Wargame never has at that speed.

Bullet time is great for sussing out a difficult tactical situation..but for the most part, I play on very slow. I also prefer larger battles, and normal time is unmanageable time for me.

[jomni]

Still need more tips. Still sick at this game. Can't beat medium AI in conquest mode.  I get to kill a lot of them but end up not capturing territory due to play style.

[HoodedHorseJoe]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but Smoke is your friend. The most effective way to block LOS is to fire the smoke onto the unit you're trying to block. Then just rush with infantry.

Haven't had a chance to try that smoke plane the Free French division has yet.