Commander:The Great War AAR!

[TheCommandTent]

I started a game as the Entente last night after giving the manual a quick read through.  Not sure exactly what I am doing yet but I finally stopped the German advance in the east but my Russians are not fairing as well as I thought they would.  Turkey just entered the war for which I was not prepared and they are running amuck in Egypt.  PP is running low for each country and I am not sure if that is due to me buying to many units or if I am getting fix/upgrade happy with them.  Also I have no idea what to do with some of my naval units, specifically the ones in the Mediterranean.  Its been fun but once I get my bearings I'll start a new game "for real"  ;D

[Gusington]

Ah the old "for real" gag.

[son_of_montfort]

I had a technical problem with SC:WWI. The scrolling on my machine was slow and jerky. They said something about it being related to Windows 7 machines, but I never could get an adequate fix.

I just wanted to say that, in response to this post, the SC:WWI dev PM'ed me and let me know that they had instituted a fix in Breakthrough. So I DL'ed the demo and it worked much better! How is that for service!

[Cougar_DK]

All this talk of WWI has waken my 'I most own a WWI game  :P'. And I have tried the SC WWI Breakthrough demo, but find it slow, the UI old and the graphic very 'messy' ( Maybe its my color blindness that makes it harder than it should...)

But SC WWI B looks more deep....


Argh all those choices.

Somebody please do a comparison  ;)


PS. I have Slitherines Panzer Corps and semi like the game (not a fan of the turn limit, but setting the difficulty one notch down, has helped a lot)

[Zulu1966]

I had a technical problem with SC:WWI. The scrolling on my machine was slow and jerky. They said something about it being related to Windows 7 machines, but I never could get an adequate fix.

I just wanted to say that, in response to this post, the SC:WWI dev PM'ed me and let me know that they had instituted a fix in Breakthrough. So I DL'ed the demo and it worked much better! How is that for service!

Try the Ludendorff offensive scenario though - I cant get that thing to scroll at all ...

[Zulu1966]

All this talk of WWI has waken my 'I most own a WWI game  :P'. And I have tried the SC WWI Breakthrough demo, but find it slow, the UI old and the graphic very 'messy' ( Maybe its my color blindness that makes it harder than it should...)

But SC WWI B looks more deep....


Argh all those choices.

Somebody please do a comparison  ;)


PS. I have Slitherines Panzer Corps and semi like the game (not a fan of the turn limit, but setting the difficulty one notch down, has helped a lot)

I have fired up the SC demo about 50 times in my battle to decide between the two. I just cant get on with it. I ended up buying the Matrix game. I am not sure SCWWI is deeper - there are a lot of nuances to the Matrix game that arent apparent immediately - but I havent played the battlefront game enough to confirm that. SC has a lot more content with the other scenarios and the different level of operations - but as I say the matrix game just feels nicer - although one area its a bit thinner is in diplomacy - though if you want WWI to play out as it happened all that stuff strikes me as a bit irrelevent. I gues I am just looking for a simpler, full WWI game so am not bothered by all the other scenarios in the SC game - its an abstract engine so not sure of the value of the more detailed division level scenarios. I hate squares as well.

[Cougar_DK]

Thanks,

I have decided for Commander - The Great War  :)

Downloading....  ;)

[Con]

Let me know what you think because I have the exact same question

Trying to decide which game will scratch my WWI itch better.  I would like to have something that is realistic (reasonably) fits historical parameters and results and basically feels like a good recreation of WWI

Con

[Martok]

Let me know what you think because I have the exact same question

Trying to decide which game will scratch my WWI itch better.  I would like to have something that is realistic (reasonably) fits historical parameters and results and basically feels like a good recreation of WWI

Con

Seconded.  Although the AI is important too. 

[W8taminute]

You guys won't regret buying Commander: TGW. 

The battelfront series of Strategic Command games never really grabbed me because the gameflow was not smooth.  I could never really establish a rythim of playing a turn.  Playing a turn seemed like a lot of work. 

In C:TGW, game flow is very smooth.  IOW action items that need to be done every turn such as moving units, performing combat, buying new units, repairing damaged, units, research, etc. all are easy to execute.  This translates, for me at least, easy to play turns despite the demands for my attention to various fronts, production matters, and research priorities.

I can't put my finger on it but playing this game just feels right.

[JudgeDredd]

iow? in other words?

[son_of_montfort]

You guys won't regret buying Commander: TGW. 

The battelfront series of Strategic Command games never really grabbed me because the gameflow was not smooth.  I could never really establish a rythim of playing a turn.  Playing a turn seemed like a lot of work. 

In C:TGW, game flow is very smooth.  IOW action items that need to be done every turn such as moving units, performing combat, buying new units, repairing damaged, units, research, etc. all are easy to execute.  This translates, for me at least, easy to play turns despite the demands for my attention to various fronts, production matters, and research priorities.

I can't put my finger on it but playing this game just feels right.

I do not disagree that the flow of C:TGW is much smoother and the turns a whole lot quicker than in SC:WWI. The big factor in this is the much more abstracted level of C:TGW and the, at least in my opinion, much smaller numbers of units and larger hex abstractions. For example, in SC:WWI, you might have 3-4 airplanes and 4-5 artillery units that can all fire and fight every turn. In C:TGW, you are lucky to have a few planes and one or two artillery units. You are VERY lucky to have the ammo to fire all those artillery (not to mention fire artillery and fire battleship barrages). But each barrage has a marked effect on the front.

The feel of each game is extremely different. C:TGW is a faster paced, chess-like, almost boardgame simplicity in its execution. That doesn't mean it is a simple game, just that the mechanics are all there in front of you and easy to access. Your turns are more manageable in small bites. You can play for 30 minutes and actually get somewhere. To me, C:TGW is pure beer and pretzels. It is dynamic and energetic, like T.E. Lawrence in 1917.

SC:WWI is a far different beast. It feel more like a grand strategy. You have lots of units, you have lots of production, you have little hand-holding and you need to be very keen with all of your moves, lest you embark on a path that will crumble a properly prepared offensive. You can't expect research to improve without funding and you have little limit on what you research at what time (I suppose you could start researching tanks from day one). SC:WWI feels more "stately," the map is a grander scale, your armies slowly slog, your turns are calculated, your production is meticulous. In 30 minutes you *might* get three or so turns in, depending on where you are in the war, but I doubt you will see a lot of gains on any front in that short of a time. So SC:WWI is stately, but more ponderous, like Hindenberg in the 1930s.

Does that make one *better* than the other? No. In fact, I'm grappling with which one I prefer. I need more game time before I can make that judgement. I think both have a place and scratch different itches.

[W8taminute]

^^IOW = In other words.  :)

^What I couldn't put into words you did.  Thanks for that comparison.  You're spot on with W:TGW.  I've got one problem now.  You summarized what is needed to play SC:WWI so nicely that I just might have to revisit the demo again.  If I can make sense of this game and allow myself a little patience, I just might pick up this title as well!!!

The bad news is that I'm going to have to put Black Ops II on hold so that I can properly digest the aforementioned games.

[Bill Runacre]

Try the Ludendorff offensive scenario though - I cant get that thing to scroll at all ...

Hi Zulu1966

The issue with scrolling seems to be with having the map text showing, and hopefully in the Breakthrough Demo if you go into Options -> Advanced and select the Hide Text During Map Scroll button, this should speed up the scrolling significantly.

Please let me know if this does make all the difference (you can always PM me) and reading your post has made us consider making this the default setting so as to hopefully avoid this cropping up again in the future. With the possibility for players to change it of course.

Thanks

Bill

[Bill Runacre]

I was trying out the new demo yesterday for Strategic Command WWI Breakthrough.  Was underwhelmed by its simplicity. Not a big fan of squares over hexagons. Also, why the hell does France have a bomber unit and an aircraft carrier unit in 1914? Not saying its a bad game but those were my impressions after playing it for an hour.

Hi Bboyer66

Just thought I'd explain about the French units as before researching for the game I also would have been surprised to see the French have a carrier in the game.

The French started developing Seaplane Carriers before the war, being the first country to do so, and the one in the game is La Foudre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Foudre

In the game Seaplane Carriers are only really useful for reconnaissance, and of limited use at that. But they can occasionally prove very useful in a naval engagement when knowing where the enemy fleet is is all important.

As to the Recon bombers, the French had about 120 aircraft when war broke out, and like their seaplane counterparts they are only really useful for reconnaissance in 1914, gaining a better ability to bomb later in the war after being improved and upgraded.

Bill