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

[Jarhead0331]

Pre-order and play NOW!!!!!!!

See ya', off to buy.

Wait what seriously?

Did I stutter? 

[undercovergeek]

Dammit!!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Mine was the speed.  I wanted to like Air-Land Battle but it moved way too quickly for my tastes (and reflexes).  You couldn't even take the time to zoom in and see the action (and enjoy the pretty graphics) or you'd end up losing a key unit/location.

I know Red Dragon introduced a slow down element but from the videos I've watched, even that moves more quickly that I care for.

It's like 1 frame per second on its slowest speed SDR!

Cool!  Haven't seen any videos with it running that slowly. 

[sandman2575]

Pre-order and play NOW!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow. That was unexpected.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welp, now I know what I'm doing once the kiddos are asleep.

ALSO - May 23 is the release date? Had no idea this was so close. I figured late summer / early fall at best.

[Grim.Reaper]

last thing I needed was another game......downloading.... darn you all!

[acctingman]

Very curious to see what you all think about this game. I think it might be too fast for me but still, curious!

[Jarhead0331]

So far, extremely encouraged! Multiple game speeds, the slowest being bullet time. Love the available maps and I'm excited to see an in-game mod center! Have not experimented with deck building yet and only played one quick skirmish. Very strategic in terms of terrain, cover, concealment, spotting, use of smoke and artillery, etc.

Its early and the beta is restricted, but I'm giving it an early 2 thumbs up.

[sandman2575]

That's great to hear. I made the mistake of glancing at some of the Steam reviews, and (surprise!) there's a lot of negativity. Glad to get an encouraging report from an informed source.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

When I first fired it up, it went through the autodetect settings sequence but then it hung and I couldn't shut it down without a hard reboot.

It's up and running now.  Looks good!  I did key rebindings as I usually do as I'm a lefty and like to use the numpad instead of WASD.  It took the inputs for the keys but they don't seem to work all the time.  The camera will only scroll if I first select something like Fire on Position, otherwise the keys to move the map don't seem to work if I remap them to the numberpad.  Hopefully they'll fix that soonish.

Tutorial's not available yet so I'm currently going through a bit of a trial and error process to learn how to play on the skirmish map.  I remember bits and blobs from Air-Land Battle but I never did play that one enough to become familiar with it (too fast for me).  I like the ability to slow things down to bullet time but I wish there were a bit more feedback so I could quickly hop over to possible trouble spots when I'm zoomed in on another section of the map.

I'm not sure how scoring works.  The skirmish map seemed to be divided into three zones.  Their deployment, my deployment, and a neutral bit in the middle.  I moved my stuff up to the middle and set up there.  My score didn't seem to move from zero but the German's did.  Kept telling me stuff like "11 minutes until Axis victory!" even though I seemed to be doing a good job of shooting up and killing their stuff without losing much of my stuff.

For the price, it seems pretty good.

[Barthheart]

Ugh! Like I need another game to distract me from my current games....  Just bought fer $52 CDN.  >:(

Downloading now.....  :D

WOW! 12.3 GB.... 58 minutes to download.... :o

[Grim.Reaper]

I had the same issue with auto detect and locked up...cancelled out of that and it worked ok.  Haven't figured things out yet:)

[-budd-]

Is every unit unlocked from the beginning or do you have to do the scenarios first before using everything in quick battles?

[Jarhead0331]

Is every unit unlocked from the beginning or do you have to do the scenarios first before using everything in quick battles?

Everything is unlocked theoretically, but everything won't be available in a random pre-made deck. If you make your own battle group, you can select the units you want and everything that is available in beta is available to be used in your decks.

[Jarhead0331]

I'm not sure how scoring works.  The skirmish map seemed to be divided into three zones.  Their deployment, my deployment, and a neutral bit in the middle.  I moved my stuff up to the middle and set up there.  My score didn't seem to move from zero but the German's did.  Kept telling me stuff like "11 minutes until Axis victory!" even though I seemed to be doing a good job of shooting up and killing their stuff without losing much of my stuff.

There are two skirmish modes...conquest and destruction. In conquest, which is default, you score points by seizing ground. In destruction, you score by blowing $hit up. Change your mode to destruction and you'll see points being earned for kills.

Remember, there are three phases to every battle and units are specific to each phase. So if a unit card has a 'B' or a 'C' on it, that unit will not be available for reinforcement until the second or third phase of the battle begins, respectively. There is a timer so you can see when the phase will advance. This adds yet another layer of strategy to deck building. I had built what I thought was a fairly well-balanced deck, only to discover when trying it out that most of my strong units were phase B and C. I could not bring them onto the map early in the battle and as a result, I suffered. Lesson learned.

[sandman2575]

There are two skirmish modes...conquest and destruction. In conquest, which is default, you score points by seizing ground. In destruction, you score by blowing $hit up. Change your mode to destruction and you'll see points being earned for kills.

If, like me, you generally suck at Wargame, you might want to switch from Conquest to Destruction, which in my experience is considerably easier vs. the AI. In Destruction, you can turtle and wait for the enemy to come to you (provided you've seized sufficient territory in the early game phase). I'm much better at that kind of thing.

EDIT -- intended as general advice -- not aimed specifically at JH!