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Maybe Next Week it'll be Swords [Wargame: Airland Battle] Preorder now for beta access
Dongs Galore
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Howdy ho, fellow patriots! C-in-C Ronnie here. Now I hate to interrupt your wholesome American rockin' n' rolling and hip-hops, but it seems as if the gosh-darn Evil Empire's gone and invaded Western Europe and Scandinavia! Even now, the mailed fist of the Soviet Army is smashing unstoppably through the Fulda Gap, while crack Soviet marines storm the beaches of Norway and Denmark. Sure, we'll probably nuke 'em, but I'm told full-scale thermonuclear war polls real poor with the electorate, so how's about instead you pick up a copy of Wargame and have yourself a hard-drivin' American try at containing the Reds with some good old-fashioned conventional warfare?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRMH887q3BoHang on, Dongs! Isn't "Wargames" an entire genre and also a popular movie?
Haha, no. Well, yes, but also a specific game. Wargame: Airland Battle is the sequel to Wargame: European Escalation, Eugen Studios' highly-acclaimed 2012 Cold War real-time strategy game. W:EE, widely regarded as the best RTS of 2012, dealt with battalion- and brigade-scale combined arms engagements between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces on the North German Plain between 1979 and 1989. Building off the IRISZOOM engine used in 2010's equally acclaimed R.U.S.E., W:EE is notable for rendering battlefields up to 16x16 kilometers in size, and, moreover, accurately simulating hundreds of contemporary pieces of military hardware, ranging from T-72s to Mi-24s to Blowpipes to AMX-30s to MILANs and encompassing 8 different nations. These extend to all aspects of modern ground warfare, including Main Battle Tanks, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, Motorized and Mechanized Infantry, Reconnaissance vehicles, Gunships, SAMs and Anti-Air Artillery, Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems and Artillery. The game revolves around the careful and effective deployment of all of these assets in support of one another.
Not pictured: T-72s, Mi-24s, Blowpipes, AMX-30s, MILANs)
The singleplayer campaigns were somewhat ill-designed, despite making a laudable attempt to devise plausible NATO-PACT warfare scenarios that didn't have to end in a nuclear holocaust. The game's main attraction was, and remains, the multiplayer, enhanced by consistent patches and four successive installments of free DLC.
TL;DR - Incredibly generic name notwithstanding, Wargame is a large-scale military grognard's sim dressed up as an AAA RTS title, and it's awesome and anyone who likes strategy games about tanks should play it forever.
But what's Airland Battle do, then?
Airland Battle proposes to improve on literally all of Wargame's shit, adding 3 whole countries and several hundred new units on top of the original roster, expanding maps to 150km and adding jet fighters including all your favorite ones from when you were a wee nipper gluing 'em together out of model kits, such as A-10 Warthogs and F-117 Stealth Fighters and Harriers and Su-27 Flankers and and and
and this fucking thing
World In Conflict did this already, Americans versus Russians is boring
Yeah but what about Czechs
versus
Danes
or Poland versus Canada???????
Cry Havoc
But for real the game actually includes full unit rosters for Poland, Czechoslovakia, Good Germany AND Evil Germany, Britain, France while ALB adds in Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I will stake my reputation as an internet military analyst that at least two of those have never been in a real AAA game before in any capacity. Also World In Conflict did not accurately model the distinct characteristics of various weapons platforms, nor did it take into account the logistics associated with arming and fueling mechanized forces during an extended engagement and basically if you play that you're a baby who needs to nut up and play this, the manliest of games for REAL MEN (and that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books)
What playing Wargame:European Escalation actually feels like
Dongs this OP is getting long why are you posting this at 4 in the morning anyway
Because I have nobody waiting for me to climb into bed, but for my own demons
also, because Pre-Orders for ALB are meant to go up in the next couple days, supposedly with the prospect of Beta access and man you really should buy that if you got the lucre to hand because that would mean you could conceivably play Swedes vs. Canadians with me! And if other people - and you too, dear reader! - were to buy it we could all play Swedes-Danes-Canadians-French vs. Czechs-Poles-Germans-Russians. There's a bunch of ALB beta gameplay videos up on youtube if you would like to peruse them and the Official Site has a bunch of neat info on it also ask me about this game and I'll tell you about this game because oh boy I'm fond of this game.
Airland Battle is supposedly slated for release in May, although that's probably gonna be pushed back. European Escalation is on steam for $34.99, a price which it is absolutely worth. If you are one of those red-blooded boys (or the more intelligent sort of girl) who has already had the gumption to assume the burden of direct tactical command of hundreds of American/Russian/British/French/Good German/Evil German/Czechoslovak/Polish sons on the field of honor, post and I shall herein transcribe your name.
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"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I just wish they hadn't patched the first mission of the second campaign into something that is nearly impossible to finish.
In fairness "Airland Battle" is an actual military doctrine, similar to "Warfighter"
Soviet deck is a guards one so hightech expensive units
Cz deck is middling tank deck with lots of T72's and bastion ATGM armed T62's
Polish deck is Mechanized infantry/Naval brigade with T55L and Pt76 support
DDR is 1975 reserve so lots of cheap T55's and T34's with masses of infantry. (do not play this as the lack of supply units really hurt)
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
The new deck system seems to enforce team work by enshrining specialisation. Russian deck have expensive high tier units, but need the back up of high quality Polish infantry or mass infantry and 50s and earlier era DDR units. Soviet has a top tier Su27 but it can be overwhelmed unless backed up with a slew of Mig21's of the DDR and Mig23's of the Polish air-force.
I like.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
They've made significant changes to the game start and economy. You start small about 750 points stranded, relative to EE were you start at 1500. But the cap points are worth a lot more so your army really starts snowballing about 5 mins into a match. So it seems the flow of the game is an actual escalation of units used more in line with stranded RTS's where there is a power curve. EE on the other hand was about husbanding your intial force while crippling your enemy.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I've always heard that the multiplayer is an absolute cakewalk compared to playing against the AI.
Well, it's a cakewalk insofar as human enemies don't have endless waves of units
is this triple triad
Sort of, the largest cap point in EE was 5, with most maps having 2 to 4 4point caps. Now were looking at averages of 6 point caps and 10 point central caps. Not only that your home cap is generally 5 points. They have drastically increased the income.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I want to speculate that the excessive income right now is intentional in order to give beta testers (Eugen seem to have seriously intended this as a *beta* and not just a demo) the chance to play with everything in their decks, but that's probably not the case. The logic, I assume, was informed by complaints of late-game EE matches getting bogged down into static artillery slugfests (also reflected in the nerfing of artillery), and also by the possibility of losing a round due to the loss of a single very high-value unit like a Challenger or a Leo2 - losses which the addition of CAS aircraft renders much more likely. On the one hand, extremely high income threatens to diminish the tactical element of gameplay since it allows you to cover all approaches evenly and press an attack without worrying about misallocating irreplaceable resources, there's also the argument that it allows more strategic and dynamic gameplay since you can concentrate on attack and maneuver rather than jealously hiding your sole T-80U in a hedgerow and hoping the enemy stumbles into ATGM range. It could also help ameliorate the instances where one side has clearly won in terms of position and material but the game still comes out a draw on points alone. I'm... not quite sure where I come down right now. I do hope the economy is one of the aspects of beta gameplay not yet written in stone.
It actually sort of reminds me of Conquest mode gameplay, where the emphasis is on aggressively engaging enemy forces in the field. On which subject: how the hell is Economy Mode supposed to work with such a high rate of income?
no this isn't dumb baby ass anime games this is WARS for MEN did you not see the REAGAN picture in the OP god DAMMIT
You choose the unit pool from which you can buy stuff before you actually go into a game, by selecting different tanks/planes/guys from the armor beforehand. Obviously this would be hellacious annoying to do every time on account of there's like 800 different units so you save your various configurations for ease of re-use.
in this way you, the "player" creates a "deck" of "units" with which to "battle" your "enemies" on "maps"
experts agree that the rate of school violence in the United States increases 13% with each one of these "electronic inter-battles". The so-called "President" still refuses to outlaw these outrages.
So you choose low numbers of high quality units and lower the number further with veterancy, or large numbers of trash units which you can then pre vet and then lower the total number of "cheap units".
But the lower number of starting points means that "mass spams" are not so large initially, at least until the economy starts adding up.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I think you can still you the other T80 variants separately from the 2 fully-vetted 80Us. You buy variants separate anyway, why would reducing the available Us limit the other T80s?
No I'm guessing if you have fully vetted T80U in your deck you can only deploy two or one, or if you only have rookies you can deploy six or eight T80Us. You now choose the unit card and it's veterancy prior to the match. Balancing brought vet is now through number of deployed units not the cost, if I'm guessing right.
Also with the year dates you can build Era decks, so I think you can deploy a Gan era soviet deck or a Vietnam era US deck. There are also unit types so you can build a Marine deck, a Armoured/Mechanised/Motorised/Para/Air assault Soviet deck. I'm guessing the current soviet deck needed to be all armoured type units so one could select the T80U card as it's listed as "prototype" but then again so is the prototype KA50 helo.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I initially thought (based on playing it for 30min or so) that European Escalation was a clickfest completely incompatible with my sluggish reflexes. Long story short, I gave it another try a week ago and I've been completely hooked since. So as soon as I saw this I of course got it. Started out with a private match all by my lonesome to try out the new bells and whistles. Seems really cool but I'm still a little confused. For example, what happened to my super-duper "y" key zoom? Next, an actual match with actual people. Unfortunately actual people can be silly geese if, say, they're your teammate and you're still learning on the job. Very silly geese indeed.
In any case, the mighty Volksarmee seems a whole lot less mighty when it's me giving the orders. Those MiG-17s don't hit much of anything before they get shot down. Maybe later on I get to unlock a giant catapult that flings Trabis? That would be much more effective.
Also, my Eugen nick is "Kung Fu Treachery" if you want to hit me up
The greatest loss the east Germans have being restricted to 70s equipment is the lack the much more effective Mig23's and Su17/22's for SEAD and ground attack. Actual ZSU with radar tracking guns would not go amiss in shoring up their terrible AA capability.
Really the biggest danger of the East Germans was how well trained their infantry could be and pulling from the other direction the ability to "insta spawn" a army in a week of about 170,000 soldiers. So you know spammers.
For the T55 try and come at the better nato units from multiple sides to get side shots, even better if you're providing the flanks to the Soviet T64/80s or the Cz T72's.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
So it does seem the high eventual income is not just a beta thing but a centre tenet of their new game rules.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
edit: although I could have sworn they were 5 when I played a 1v1 last night...
A smary beta tester who swears black and blue that infantry being overrun in forests by tanks is not a problem just got rolled in a 4v4 vurses me.
Satisfaction I hear you; when he crys about his teammates 2 v 1 ing me and losing double the points to my Cz super men. Also your expensive Danish Draken's and F16, all killed by a little Mig21bis \o/. I hear you, and it is sensuous
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
If you're holding forests Tanks and atgm vehs are a safer bet.
Infantry are good defending from towns and a cheaper way to throw away points taking buildings by providing targets while your recon spots and your veh pound the buildings from range.
but really unless they're re-con units don't use them in "trees".
That game his team mates tanks and infantry were destoryed in and around forests by my tank heavy build.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
SEAD armed planes like the British tornado or the French Jaguar can be called onto the map and will auto fire their anti radar missles at any radar on and tracking in range.
Pro tip when fighting the french or british decks: Turn off the radar guns on the Tunguska and just let the infrared missiles fly.
Protip you can set up hilarious ambushes with SEADplanes flying behind your lines while having Interceptors just behind. You can also expensively kill sead planes by having a radar AAA unit start firing then lining the presumed air attack corridor with non radar SAM's and guns.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
And I just saw the USMC gets an Ontos. Yeah, that's the stuff...let's see how many recoilless rifles we can strap to a bulldozer! Now THAT'S a technical.
Sticking AA and ATGM squads high on mountainsides can be pretty effective
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
They don't, but they can also hide up there from enemy armor while sniping at planes or reconning (it would make sense at least for recon to improve from a mountain top but idk if it does)