Airship Dragoon?

[Jarhead0331]

Looks good on paper...steam punk? turn-based tactical combat? x-com?

Hardcore Turn-Based Steampunk Squad Tactics In The Old School Style Of Julian Gollop's X-Com And Laser Squad

    Conquer the super-continent of Pangea with an invasion of Airships!
    Battle Dastardly Pirate Insurgents!
    Keep the locals happy or they will be revolting!


Game Features:

    Turn-based squad tactical combat with emergent gameplay
    2 massive strategic campaigns featuring resource, technology and population management
    Campaigns are randomized on creation for infinite replayability
    Single Battle Mode for getting straight into tactical action
    No two games the same
    20 battlefields
    Randomized deployment on battlefields
    5 types of environment with environmental modifiers
    3 types of battlefield objectives
    4 types of weather
    Enemy Ai with 11 different combat tactics
    5 Ai campaign strategies
    7 classes of troops, each with 4 upgrades of weapons/equipment
    Troops have unique attributes which are upgraded with experience
    6 playable Steampunk factions
        Austro-Hungarian Empire
        British Royalists
        Chinese Dynasty
        Peoples Collective
        US Republic
        Zulu Nation

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-ASD/airship-dragoon

[spelk]

You can get a feel for the game watching the trailer.

I bought it, but have had issues getting it to run on my old laptop with any semblance of fluidity. I think I've overstepped my laptops capabilities with this title (and a number of others nowadays!)

I think James Allen did a vid-review too.

[Gusington]

Interesting and kind of bizarre.

[LongBlade]

Developer is "Yorkshire Rifles"

[Tpek]

I've been eying this for a short while now.
I'd like to see some impressions of it before really deciding whether to jump in or not.

[CptHowdy]

that video of the tactical combat was brutal. hope they work on speeding that up.

[steve58]

There is a demo from the beta (last September).  I tried it out, but gave up on it fairly quickly.  The airships themselves aren't really used other than to move over a new territory to invade.  I probably didn't give it a really good try, just have too many other choices at the moment....

http://www.indiedb.com/games/airship-dragoon/downloads/airship-dragoon-demo

[PanzersEast]

http://gamingtrend.com/game_reviews/airship-dragoon-review-accidentally-game/


PE

[Grim.Reaper]

Anyone still playing this one?  Downloaded the demo today and kind of interesting...don't know how to really play it, moving all my little men seems tedious....but interesting.  I'll keep giving it a try.

[W8taminute]

Don't know how I missed this thread.  Although all the reviews are slamming the game for being boring I'm still intrigued.  I've put this game on my wishlist and will wait for a price drop before picking it up. 

[Queeg]

I'm enjoying it despite a few flaws.  I posted these thoughts over at the Wargamer, and being too lazy to rewrite them I'll just repeat them here:

Just bought it and played around with a quick battle.  Still getting a feel for it, but I am intrigued. 

It is turn-based.  You issue orders to your guys one at a time using action points that can be used for movement, firing or reserved for reaction.  You can skip bewteen guys, so you can move one a bit, then move another, then move the first guy again - so it does have a squad-like feel.  When your action points are exhausted (or reserved for reaction fire), your end your turn and the bad guys move.

Graphics are OK, but the bad guys are often little more than dots in the distance.  You locate them as much by tracking their fire at you as by actually spotting them.  You don't really aim; you are given a list of targets your guy can see and are within weapon range, then use action points to fire.  I assume weapon choice and distance matter and more experienced guys are better shots.  It doesn't appear that you can do much to influence the hit chances except work together, get closer, have the right weapon and stay alive to get better - a pretty reasonable combination overall. 

There probably is more to it that will become apparent as I get into it, and I haven't tried the campaigns.

In an odd way it sort of reminds me of the old top-down perspective game 101:  The Airborne Invasion of Normandy, in that you outfit your troops down the last bullet.  Weapon loadouts matter; my guys were getting shot before they even saw the bad guys because their weapons were outranged.  The perspective here is different - third-person - but you do have to think about how your squad is equipped and who has what weapon.

It also has a nice steampunk feel to it.  It's different and fun so far.

Here's a couple more posts after seeing James Allen's review:

Having now played a bit more, I'd say James' review is spot on.

A small 5-on-5 battle can be a lot of fun.  Lots of sneaking around trying to outflank the bad guys.  And the AI is pretty good; I've lost about half the time on Medium settings.

I do have a couple of gripes.  First, even a small battle can take a half hour or so.  Without an autoresolve feature, I can't even imagine playing the campaigns.  I started one, but when the first battle I encountered was 15-on-15, I didn't have the heart to play it out.  Which is a shame, because the game seems to have some nice squad management features - promotions between battles, etc - that come into play only in the campaign.  I wish they'd add either an autoresolve feature or a setting to set the size of campaign battles.  As it is, I'm not sure I'll ever play the campaign.

Also, a mini-map would be nice in the battles.  It's often hard to orient yourself as to where each of your guys is located.  I actually got better at figuring it out using terrain features, so it's really not a huge deal.  But did take some getting used to.

Even with those issues, I have enjoyed it.  The battles are really quite unique and a good way to get in a bit of gaming in a half hour or so.

I think I like the battles a bit more than you did.  The slow pace doesn't really bother me; I'm a guy who plays FarCry crawling through the weeds the whole time.

The map size creates lots of great tactical opportunities.  The fact that you don't start right on top of the bad guys means you can set up good defensive positions or flanking attacks.  And there's a lot of "flush the target with my machine gunner, then kill him with my sniper" opportunities.  Just finding the enemy is part of the fun, at least given my style of play.

And I've found the AI to be pretty good, even on the default setting.  The AI does a really good job of using the terrain; they don't just charge over the nearest hill.  I've had my guys picked off by flanking attacks.  And the maps are big enough that the AI moves don't seem repetitive or scripted (as least not yet). 

Finally, you mentioned weapon accuracy - it does depend a lot on the skill and experience of the shooter.  None of the troops is Sgt. York - which is good IMO - but skill and experience, as well as whether the unit is moving or stationary, make a difference in a way that makes sense.  I haven't seen outcomes that seem implausible - AI shooting through hills or having infalible eye sight, for example. 

The battles have really grown on me as I play more.  Still, I can't imagine playing a huge 20-on-20 campaign affair.

[W8taminute]

^There are some points brought up in those discussions which I share, hence my intrigue with this game.  It would make sense that your men will not hit much at range if they are not experienced.  However as they survive and gain more experience I bet the battles flow just a bit faster because they will be hitting more often than not.

That video of James Allen tells a lot.  Why did he waste so much ammo firing his weapons at their extreme ranges?  I bet if he didn't reserve ap for shooting and instead moved his men their max amount each turn he could have closed the distance to the enemy and got better hit ratios. 

The only scary thing about this game is the length of time needed to play out a battle.  I wonder if you can save the game during a fight?

[Queeg]

^There are some points brought up in those discussions which I share, hence my intrigue with this game.  It would make sense that your men will not hit much at range if they are not experienced.  However as they survive and gain more experience I bet the battles flow just a bit faster because they will be hitting more often than not.

That video of James Allen tells a lot.  Why did he waste so much ammo firing his weapons at their extreme ranges?  I bet if he didn't reserve ap for shooting and instead moved his men their max amount each turn he could have closed the distance to the enemy and got better hit ratios. 

The only scary thing about this game is the length of time needed to play out a battle.  I wonder if you can save the game during a fight?

I'm going to dive in and try a campaign.  I think maybe the larger battles will go faster simply because there are more guys shooting at each other.

Experience, etc definitely makes a difference.  If you look at the trooper stats in the recruitment screen, you'll see that each "character" has a rating on things like experience, stamina, morale and reactions.  There's actually a lot more going on in this game than initially meets the eye.

And after playing a few battles and watching James' review again, I see that he basically played his first battle the way I did mine - charge ahead and shoot the first thing I saw.  After playing a bit more, I now use cover and limit reaction fire to wait for a good shot.  The battles are lot more fun - and challenging - once you know how the system works.

And, yes, you can save during battles.

Also, there is a demo here:  http://www.yorkshirerifles.com/webpages/games.html#demo

[W8taminute]

That's good to hear you can save during battles. 

I noticed that there are quite a few different stats for your men as well.  That's always a good thing.  So on the main map is it just a matter of flying around to various locations and initiating battle to conquer territory?  Is there an economy you can run and buildings to build etc.?

[Queeg]

Not sure yet about the economic game.  The campaign does track population, food and resources, though I'm not quite sure yet if you make anything apart from capturing new territory.  I think as you conquer territory, you gain in each area depending on the nature of the land you gain (urban, temperate, etc).  I know you can build garrisons to protect your conquests.

But the campaign is essentially about conquest.  Your troopers gain experience with each fight.