The Great War: Western Front

[Jarhead0331]

Yeah just downloaded the demo update. How many tutorials are there right now?

Seven Chapters I believe.

[Destraex]

Played the demo a bit and I like it. But so far something seems off. I am not finished learning the tactical battles and how they work yet. I think I was expecting more detail in the infantry details panel. Exactly what loadouts they had and who their commander is. What the companies exact designation is, 2 Co, 51st Sutherland highlanders CO such and such, 100 rifles, rifle grenades, lewis guns x 2 etc.

I am also finding that I really would have liked to see the exact trench line to see where to attack, but the hexes kind of prevent that. Still learning it though, so these are just my initial feelings. A ww1 game is obviously a treasure even if it is not perfect. This one is at a minumum, good.

Oh and the voice overs. Save me I am sure they are from cossacks 2 napolenic. Very bad. Very canned.

[W8taminute]

Played the demo a bit and I like it. But so far something seems off. I am not finished learning the tactical battles and how they work yet. I think I was expecting more detail in the infantry details panel. Exactly what loadouts they had and who their commander is. What the companies exact designation is, 2 Co, 51st Sutherland highlanders CO such and such, 100 rifles, rifle grenades, lewis guns x 2 etc.

I am also finding that I really would have liked to see the exact trench line to see where to attack, but the hexes kind of prevent that. Still learning it though, so these are just my initial feelings. A ww1 game is obviously a treasure even if it is not perfect. This one is at a minumum, good.

Oh and the voice overs. Save me I am sure they are from cossacks 2 napolenic. Very bad. Very canned.

I noticed that too regarding the unit display panel.  Even if you hover over a unit card I don't remember seeing the detail you talk about.  I'll have to look for this when I play the demo again.

As for the exact locations of the trenches you do see them clearly once the battle begins after the preparation/setup phase is complete.  During the prep phase the trench positions appear as white icons giving a non-clear indication of the trench positioning but rather a graphical overview which might seem off putting.

[Destraex]

Played the demo a bit and I like it. But so far something seems off. I am not finished learning the tactical battles and how they work yet. I think I was expecting more detail in the infantry details panel. Exactly what loadouts they had and who their commander is. What the companies exact designation is, 2 Co, 51st Sutherland highlanders CO such and such, 100 rifles, rifle grenades, lewis guns x 2 etc.

I am also finding that I really would have liked to see the exact trench line to see where to attack, but the hexes kind of prevent that. Still learning it though, so these are just my initial feelings. A ww1 game is obviously a treasure even if it is not perfect. This one is at a minumum, good.

Also is it possible to move re-enforcements into an area from an ajacent hex as/while a battle is in progress?

Oh and the voice overs. Save me I am sure they are from cossacks 2 napolenic. Very bad. Very canned.

I noticed that too regarding the unit display panel.  Even if you hover over a unit card I don't remember seeing the detail you talk about.  I'll have to look for this when I play the demo again.

As for the exact locations of the trenches you do see them clearly once the battle begins after the preparation/setup phase is complete.  During the prep phase the trench positions appear as white icons giving a non-clear indication of the trench positioning but rather a graphical overview which might seem off putting.

I am more talking about the strategic map. I want to see the front line. But because the strategic map is static, they do not draw the trench line as you move forward I guess. Part of the reason I want to see the front line is because once I break through, I want to see that I will then be able to actually get into green fields and clear ground and see what the war is like then. However I am guessing we are restricted to winning the war through trench warfare. I guess it is considered won once a breakthrough happens.

Note to self: Read up on operation michael and see if they got past the trenches and did not encounter more.

[Destraex]

I really like this game after playing it some more. Just need some clarification on the multiplayer aspect.
There is just so much depth in terms of things to try and it's been really well thought out.
A few things here and there I would have liked improved but generally, the game is a triumph. Finally a ww1 game that is worth it's salt.

[W8taminute]

Nice AAR Destraex!

I went through all of those sections of the tutorial and also absolutely loved it.  The game does seem to be well thought out. 

I think it's important to understand the intentions of the developers.  Although theoretically you should be able to blitz your way through once you break through a hex that is fortified I have the feeling that the next hex in 'green pastures' will bog you down again.  So you have to bash your head against the wall again multiple times before advancing further.  WW1 baby!  That's what is was.

As boring as it might sound to rinse and repeat the same thing over and over again I think it will have it's little variations in each hex keeping it interesting.  At least for me.  If a game is well fleshed out I actually enjoy doing the same thing over and over again. 

[SirAndrewD]

I decree it.

This is the one.

[Sir Slash]

Somebody say something bad about this game so I will stop wanting it. Can you help a Brother out?

[SirAndrewD]

Somebody say something bad about this game so I will stop wanting it. Can you help a Brother out?

It's potentially going to be like Petroglyph's other masterpiece, Empire at War.  So good and defining that it will be hard to live up to, so it won't get a follow on.  So in 20 years we probably won't have a better game and just our nostalgia because our EloZuker-Gates 9000 Full Haptic VR Helm won't run it.

[Destraex]

Somebody say something bad about this game so I will stop wanting it. Can you help a Brother out?

Some things seem backwards. Such as the scores above. You can see the Allied Casualties listed under the German flag. Technically correct, but really it should be listed as enemy casualties if being taken from the German perspective. A lot of things in game are like this. For instance when you are in a trench you get a cover bonus, iirc it's listed as a negative. Instead of cover bonus +X it is listed as "damage reduced"... which could be taken as you do less damage to the enemy. I assume this is not the case as the icon when you are in a trench is a brick wall.

They say things like burned instead of burnt... ;)

[Sir Slash]

Thank you Destraex.  That was too close.

[Destraex]

Thank you Destraex.  That was too close.

Anytime.
I fear though that it was simply not enough. :P

[Destraex]

Oh and I just noticed it's not "Allied Casualties" but "Allies Casualties". But should they not be using Entente powers and Central Powers?

[Ian C]

It's worth mentioning that this game uses Denuvo DRM. This may be of interest to those using SSD drives and concerned with performance issues, but I recommend doing your own research into it.   

Denuvo has been criticised for high central processing unit (CPU) usage and excessive writing operations on storage components, the latter causing significant life-span reductions for solid-state drives (SSDs). Denuvo Software Solutions has denied both claims. In the case of Tekken 7 and Sonic Mania Plus, Denuvo caused a significant decrease in performance in several parts of these games. Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica reviewed in-depth how Denuvo was causing performance penalties, releasing an article on the matter in December 2018. In December 2018, Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech compared the performance of multiple games with Denuvo enabled and disabled, and found that the games tested had significantly higher frame rates and lower loading times when Denuvo was not used. Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry compared the performance of a pirated version of Resident Evil Village which had stripped out Denuvo and Capcom's additional copy protection against the release version for Windows, and found that the DRM-stripped version performed far better than the released game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

[Destraex]

More writes is never better for an SSD that only has so many writes per cell.
Frankly I am surprised piracy is still such a big issue in the industry.  But given a lot of the language editing and voice overs perhaps the dev team comes from a place where it's still a huge problem.