http://matrixgames.com/products/472/details/Germany.at.War.Barbarossa.1941
Not new... redo of Operation Barbarossa from a few years ago.
I like the look of it.
It's not a complete "redo" Barthheart, but it is fairly similar. I'm currently testing it and although there are differences, it plays similarly to what you would envision an improved version of Operation Barbarossa would play like.
Quote from: ComradeP on June 13, 2013, 07:59:18 AM
It's not a complete "redo" Barthheart, but it is fairly similar. I'm currently testing it and although there are differences, it plays similarly to what you would envision an improved version of Operation Barbarossa would play like.
I was invited to beta test as well but never received a key after multiple requests so I just gave up.... so I didn't know that they had made major changes....
How many East Front games are there now? It seems like there are more in the last couple of years, than every existed from the beginning of PC gaming.
Quote from: Barthheart on June 13, 2013, 08:17:43 AM
I was invited to beta test as well but never received a key after multiple requests so I just gave up.... so I didn't know that they had made major changes....
Sorry, we've had some issues on the beta test coordination side. Can you ping me at erikr@matrixgames.com please? We'll get that sorted out.
Glad to hear this is getting revamped; the original release had a fine Panzer General aura to it, but the release was (let us say) problematic. Hope the revamp will succeed!
My memory must be having a bad time regarding the release of Operation Barbarossa, as several people said it was plagued with problems, but I don't really recall any major problems with my install.
QuoteHow many East Front games are there now? It seems like there are more in the last couple of years, than every existed from the beginning of PC gaming.
Well, there's still obviously an "audience" for more depictions of the war on the Eastern Front, it seems to be a subject that keeps attracting wargamers with each generation. I can imagine that if you grew up with boardgames, the recent PC wargame release are not exactly inspiring, but from a commercial perspective releasing games for the same operations over and over works. To me, Zitadelle, the Battle of the Bulge and Stalingrad are a bit too popular and the titles are often not that great, although a good tactical or small scale operational level simulator of the battle of Stalingrad for the areas outside the city (from the city to Kalach or so) could be nice.
The Pacific Theater of operations on the other hand, or any war in Asia really (I'm always surprised by the lack of operational games and tactical games covering Vietnam, maybe it's still too much of a touchy subject or the current generation is less interested in it than their fathers were) isn't covered by anything close to the number of games for the handful of really well known WWII battles in Europe/European Asia. Is there even a single operational level PC wargame (so not a scenario for TOAW or the like, a full game) covering Vietnam or Korea to begin with?
Still, this is still a niche market, so the total number of titles isn't enormous even for the popular battles.
I don't want to de-rail the thread, but you can say that again ComradeP!
Quote from: SgtRock on June 13, 2013, 12:32:09 PM
How many East Front games are there now? It seems like there are more in the last couple of years, than every existed from the beginning of PC gaming.
you say that like its a bad thing.
So, aside from "Germany At War" being almost the most generic title possible, does this mean they may be looking at expanding the original game into a series (the first game being a redo of the Barbarossa game)?
Quote from: ComradeP on June 16, 2013, 08:47:26 AM
My memory must be having a bad time regarding the release of Operation Barbarossa, as several people said it was plagued with problems, but I don't really recall any major problems with my install.
QuoteHow many East Front games are there now? It seems like there are more in the last couple of years, than every existed from the beginning of PC gaming.
Well, there's still obviously an "audience" for more depictions of the war on the Eastern Front, it seems to be a subject that keeps attracting wargamers with each generation. I can imagine that if you grew up with boardgames, the recent PC wargame release are not exactly inspiring, but from a commercial perspective releasing games for the same operations over and over works. To me, Zitadelle, the Battle of the Bulge and Stalingrad are a bit too popular and the titles are often not that great, although a good tactical or small scale operational level simulator of the battle of Stalingrad for the areas outside the city (from the city to Kalach or so) could be nice.
The Pacific Theater of operations on the other hand, or any war in Asia really (I'm always surprised by the lack of operational games and tactical games covering Vietnam, maybe it's still too much of a touchy subject or the current generation is less interested in it than their fathers were) isn't covered by anything close to the number of games for the handful of really well known WWII battles in Europe/European Asia. Is there even a single operational level PC wargame (so not a scenario for TOAW or the like, a full game) covering Vietnam or Korea to begin with?
Still, this is still a niche market, so the total number of titles isn't enormous even for the popular battles.
I thought the Command Ops people were working on Little Saturn and the Combat Command group was working on a tactical destruction of Army Group CEnter?
I thought the original Operation Barbarossa game was pretty fun, but I'm not seeing the draw with Panzer Corps out there honestly. They fill the same niche only Panzer Corps has a lot of support behind it. The original Operation Barbarossa the support dried up pretty quickly. Hopefully that will not be the case this time.
Matrixgames is looking for more beta testers for multiplayer this weekend...
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3349975
Quote
Hi guys
we urgently need some more beta testers to give the game a last look this weekend before we prepare the gold master. We're especially interested in giving multiplayer a final blast over the weekend.
We have deployed our new beta sign up system which is all shiny and fully automated. We hope it all goes smoothly but you'll also be guinea pigs for that!
You can sign up here:
http://www.matrixgames.com/beta/
We'll be admitting people Friday for a weekend beta test. Let anyone who might be interested know.
Thanks!
_____________________________
Iain McNeil
Director
Slitherine Software
Website http://www.slitherine.com
QuoteI thought the Command Ops people were working on Little Saturn and the Combat Command group was working on a tactical destruction of Army Group CEnter?
Correct regarding Command Ops. I have no idea what the Combat Command people are working on.
I bought Command Ops during the Christmas sale after sitting on the fence for a long while because I'm not all that interested in the Battle of the Bulge, but I haven't played it in months. It's an interesting game, but I had some objections to the way the scenarios I played tended to make a German victory exceptionally difficult. The majority of the points came from occupying objectives, which lead to the typical wargame problem of it being irrelevant for either side whether his force was combat capable at the end of the scenario, and I also didn't like being able to fire every artillery piece at a single target, if I chose to do so (and in some of the scenarios I couldn't think of any better way of going somewhere as the Germans, taking the inadequate forces at my disposal into account). Depending on what parts of the Little Saturn offensive are modelled, there could once more be a significant gap in the quality and quality of the attacking and defending forces. I don't even want to think about being able to manually control every Soviet artillery unit.
Part of the charm of games like Panzer General/Corps and Germany at War comes from the game itself being fairly simple, which also means that aside from problems with overstrength elite units, you don't run into the problems you can encounter in some of the more detailed wargames.
I'm not getting your point on objectives ComP. Every wargame I can think of uses objective capture as a scoring system.
QuoteI'm not getting your point on objectives ComP. Every wargame I can think of uses objective capture as a scoring system.
But many have a system where losses also cost you a serious amount of points or are at the least worth something. In the Command Ops scenarios I played, the value of losses was much less than that of objectives, so you get the typical small scenario problem of placing a wall of units in front of objectives or otherwise ignoring losses because they're largely irrelevant. For detailed wargames, I'm not a fan of a system where a side can lose most of its troops and still win.
Quote from: ComradeP on June 18, 2013, 08:39:49 AM
QuoteI thought the Command Ops people were working on Little Saturn and the Combat Command group was working on a tactical destruction of Army Group CEnter?
Correct regarding Command Ops. I have no idea what the Combat Command people are working on.
I bought Command Ops during the Christmas sale after sitting on the fence for a long while because I'm not all that interested in the Battle of the Bulge, but I haven't played it in months. It's an interesting game, but I had some objections to the way the scenarios I played tended to make a German victory exceptionally difficult. The majority of the points came from occupying objectives, which lead to the typical wargame problem of it being irrelevant for either side whether his force was combat capable at the end of the scenario, and I also didn't like being able to fire every artillery piece at a single target, if I chose to do so (and in some of the scenarios I couldn't think of any better way of going somewhere as the Germans, taking the inadequate forces at my disposal into account). Depending on what parts of the Little Saturn offensive are modelled, there could once more be a significant gap in the quality and quality of the attacking and defending forces. I don't even want to think about being able to manually control every Soviet artillery unit.
Part of the charm of games like Panzer General/Corps and Germany at War comes from the game itself being fairly simple, which also means that aside from problems with overstrength elite units, you don't run into the problems you can encounter in some of the more detailed wargames.
I skipped the Command Ops battle of the Bulge. I thought Conquest of the Aegean was a fantastic game and their Little Saturn should be pretty interesting at the very least.
I don't recall artillery being a big problem in CAegean, but maybe there just wasn't that much of it.
Who is the developer? It looked like the field was blank on the product page.
I think they're called Phobetor now.
Quote from: ComradeP on June 18, 2013, 01:09:53 PM
QuoteI'm not getting your point on objectives ComP. Every wargame I can think of uses objective capture as a scoring system.
But many have a system where losses also cost you a serious amount of points or are at the least worth something. In the Command Ops scenarios I played, the value of losses was much less than that of objectives, so you get the typical small scenario problem of placing a wall of units in front of objectives or otherwise ignoring losses because they're largely irrelevant. For detailed wargames, I'm not a fan of a system where a side can lose most of its troops and still win.
Well I think it's a matter of accepting that the primary focus of the game as a simulation of operational command is seizing objectives. I'm not disputing the fact that a force which has sustained heavy casualty rates are still able to hold an objective and win. Historically that is not an unheard of occurrence were an army while on the face of it loses due to high casualty count still accomplishes the mission by holding or seizing key objectives at an operational level. I've also not really seen too many occurrences in the game where a unit that suffers high casualty rates doesn't rout off of a position. One point I do agree with is that occasionally an objective will remain in contention because both forces have forces in the area of the objective. Even though one side may outnumber the other in terms of numerical personnel counts or number of units in area. That can be frustrating.