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The search for tactical games: Aliens not necessary.
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It's part of John Tiller's Squad Battles series of historic tactical wargames. It's easy to pick up and it's really well done. It comes packed with scenarios and campaigns. Full editors for creating your own scenarios and campaigns. It has a great combat system which accounts for morale, unit effectiveness, equipment states, and all kinds of other grognardy granular goodness. You also get good historical documentation (in the case of Winter War, you get Trotter's work on the subject, The White Death) and outstanding documentation on every aspect of the game (regrettably it's all in .pdf format).
I'm definitely going to pick up the Soviet-Afghan War, and Advance of the Reich (I have a developing thing for Soviet Military history). I'm also really thinking about getting The Spanish Civil War. I love the fact that they pay attention to conflicts that usually escape the attention of other developers. Winter War has definitely been both entertaining and educational.
Google around and hit eBay/Amazon if you feel like picking up an HPS game. You can generally find retailers that sell them about twenty bucks cheaper than the store on HPS Simulations homepage.
I haven't really delved into the who's who side of the scenarios, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was one of the (A+ rated) sniper units that I've used in one or more of the scenarios I've played. Yes, the units and scenarios are that historically detailed. I haven't gotten to the level of familiarity with the historic persons in the Winter War yet, but this game supports that level of historic detail. If Simo was at a battle and the scenario is in the game, you can bet you'll see his name on a sniper unit and he'll have stats to represent his prowess in battle.
And holy shit a Finnish sniper in the right place is worth ten legions of Sardaukar.
So, tldr; Yes, there most likely is.
:^:
I've recently been playing the X-COM series and am now trying to get into Close Combat, having read good things about it. Before that I really enjoyed games like Silent Storm and Sudden Strike and am looking for similar tactical experiences. Open for suggestions.
Have you played Jagged Alliance?
Yeah. Got JA2 when it first came out - the horrible Dutch version with bugged ability training and missing files that would give you a crash to desktop when someone fired a specific smoke grenade (or some such thing). Still played the hell out of it.
I tried getting back into JA2 with some of the recommended mods, but IMO it hasn't aged that well. I find the game too frustrating now.
Thanks for the suggestion though, it was indeed a classic.
The 1.13 version is pretty much completly different. I still play it to this day, but to each their own.
Unfortunately they're aren't that many new tactical games out these days.
Took me a few tries to get past the
If you enjoy Close Combat at all, you might enjoy Combat Mission. The earlier WW2 games are all solid: Beyond Overlord, Barbarossa to Berlin, and Afrika Korps.
The new one, Shock Force, had a rocky start, and by start I mean it came out in 2007 and a week ago I finally starting playing and enjoying it. The demo has stuff from both expansions out now. It's a modern military tactics game with US Army and Marines and the British vs Syria.
The game I'm playing now is a quick battle Syrian vs Syrian militia match, which has been pretty fun so far. Last turn I had, one of my pickup trucks with a mounted machinegun was knocked out and set on fire. Right before the driver ran the hell away, he chucked a grenade at the enemy pickup and killed the two guys operating the machinegun.
Looks nice, I'll give Shockforce a try! Though older 3D Close Combat games seem to have eye-bleedingly awful graphics. I know in niche genres you shouldn't complain about how it looks too much, but yeugh.
Here's a video of the turn I was talking about a few posts up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l1-U3MW0Vo
I tried to catch the end of the turn where my other pickup got hit with an HE round and was actually rocked back by the blast, but the camera panned the wrong way and I didn't feel like trying to take another video.
Thats about all i know however, despite owning all of them.
It's really a lot more than the Gallic Wars. Since I'm feeling lazy I'm just gonna do some copypasta action from the website.
The game engine is really interesting. It's a simultaneous turn system, where you give your orders to your troops. Once you've finished setting that up, you push the end turn button and watch the action unfold. The rule system is based on the standard rules for Table Top ancient warfare miniatures and then punched up to eleven to take advantage of a PC's number crunching ability. So if you've done table top wargaming before, then a lot of the stuff in the game feels instantly familiar. The game ships with the expected editors allowing the creation of all kinds of custom content and a great mix of scenarios covering the historic, the hypothetical and Table Top style battles with point based armies.
I've had this game laying around for a while, but I'm just really starting to crack it open. Battles are intense, requiring some real planning and execution, which never goes one hundred percent. You'll have to respond quickly to situations that can change rapidly. A situation can go from catastrophe to a triumphant route with a well placed cavalry charge or a light infantry flanking maneuver. Sure the graphics are from the 90's but you just can't get this kind of tactical action from Total War.
edit: If anyone is looking for an online retailer for this stuff, I've used these guys. I got my stuff quick, no hassles A++ would buy again.