Tag Archive

Day Of The Jackals: The Brits Invade CMSF

Written by Tim Stone on June 14, 2009.

As the night sky pales over a dusty plateau near Damascus, two Wolf Land Rovers and two Jackal patrol vehicles parked in the lee of a ruined wall, start their engines and move off in search of the enemy. My first Combat Mission Shock Force: British Forces battle is underway. Wish me luck.

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1066: Shield Walls And Stench Weasels

Written by Tim Stone on June 7, 2009.

The bloke that cut-me-up on the A303 yesterday is a STENCH WEASEL, the librarian that never returns my smile is a RAVEN STARVER, and the person that regularly fly-tips at the end of my road is a STINKING TURD. Thank you midden-mouthed web wargame 1066, a week in your company has enriched my abuse lexicon no end.

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Interview: Johan Andersson On Hearts Of Iron 3

Written by Tim Stone on May 31, 2009.

The best way to learn about Paradox’s rapidly approaching grand-strategy leviathan Hearts of Iron 3? Sit down with a gallon mug of tea and a family-size packet of custard creams and plough through the fascinating 30-part developer diary. If you’ve already done that, or don’t have the patience/dunkable biscuitry to take on such a task, try the following Q&A in which Lead Designer and Man of History Johan Andersson fields questions on subjects as diverse as HoI3, gulags, and HoI3.

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Theatre Of War 2: The Curtain Lifts

Written by Tim Stone on February 22, 2009.

Great – it looks like I’m going to get to use my ‘The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the Krauts.’ strapline again. Theatre of War, one of the more wargamerly WW2 RTSs of recent years, is about to spawn a sequel. Going by this hot-off-the-compiler Russian-language demo, that sequel will please a lot more grogs than its parent did.

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WW2: General Commander: Bulging Demo

Written by Tim Stone on February 8, 2009.

Battle of the Bulge wargames aren’t exactly novel, but it’s been ages since anyone recreated the last major German offensive of the War without using hexes or turns. Spanish studio Games GI are the people behind – deep breath – World War 2: General Commander: Watch On The Rhine. Going by the surprisingly hefty demo they seem to know what they’re doing. Though the swarmy AI and simplistic logistics won’t impress Airborne Assault aficionados (who, incidentally, are waiting patiently for their own Bulge game) the trim UI and understated 3D visuals possibly will.

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The Road To Damascus Resurfaced: CMSF v1.11

Written by Tim Stone on January 11, 2009.

Anyone wondering whether troubled contemporary wargame Combat Mission: Shock Force is now fit for duty should definitely give the new 1.11 ‘Marines’ demo a spin. Battlefront have lashed together a bland training scenario, a dreadfully imbalanced armour clash (’Smashing Metal’ – play as the Syrians if you want any sort of challenge), and – thank God – two variants of a quality FIBUA engagement, to showcase a year’s worth of improvements. I still have a few issues with the full game, but nervously hunting Syrian airborne troops through the streets of Tadmur (’USMC – Going To Town’), it’s impossible not to admire what CMSF has finally become.

Read on for a few beginner’s tips.

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War Plan Pacific: Nimitz with limitz

Written by Tim Stone on January 4, 2009.

For those of us that like our strategic entertainment martial and historical 2008 wasn’t exactly a stellar year. AGEOD kept their end up well enough, Matrix Games produced the odd semi-precious gem, and Combat Mission: Shock Force finally started looked like the game thousands of CMx1 fans hoped it would be, but overall it was a stale, depressing twelve months. The famine may explain why I’m moderately excited about War Plan Pacific, a pared-down WW2 wargame from new outfit KE Studios.

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Jutland: Hell Or High Water?

Written by Tim Stone on December 14, 2008.

Few nations have produced as many great naval tacticians as the British. Drake, Nelson, that bloke out of Master & Commander, Captain Pugwash… our history is awash with them. No surprise then that the few that do under-perform are quickly forgotten. Show me a UK resident who knows who John Jellicoe was, and I’ll show you a bearded man in his fifties or sixties who spends far too much time sat at the back of the library reading Jane’s Fighting Ships. I’ll also show you a potential buyer of Storm Eagle Studios’ latest real-time wargame.

My landlubberly impressions of the Jutland demo after the cut.

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“Why most games are dumb”

Written by Tim Stone on April 21, 2008.

Dave O’Connor, the boffin behind the smartest, most plausible strategy game AI I’ve ever had the pleasure to pit wits against, has been sharing some of his secrets with students in Canberra. His hour-long lecture sheds light on many of the features that make the Airborne Assault wargames so singular: the micro-management eliminating delegation system (31:10), the ingenious route-finding routines (36:50), the inertia modelling (18:45), the representation of ’soft’ factors like leader temperaments (25:30)… If mainstream RTS developers adopted just a fraction of these ideas the world of strategy gaming would be a far more interesting place.

Armored Brigade

Written by Tim Stone on March 30, 2008.

A T-80 tank bogged-down beside a river gets cluster-bombed by a passing A-10. The plane then strays too close to a Shilka and is shot from the sky, crashing next to a forest occupied by two Russian ATGM teams. These teams have just killed the lead vehicle in a column of Bradleys and, anticipating a retaliatory artillery strike, are pulling back. They’re retreating on foot because their taxis, two BMP-2 IFVs, were destroyed five minutes earlier by prowling M1A1s.
 
Sound interesting? If the answer’s yes then you may enjoy Armored Brigade. A free real-time wargame with Combat Mission and Close Combat echoes, it’s causing quite a stir in groggy circles at the moment. Shock Force might have the graphics and the granularity, but AB has the flexible skirmish generator and the wary TacAI. Hopefully, future versions will include better map shading (reading terrain can be tricky), a save function, and a few fripperies like unit photos. Not everyone knows just how cool MIM-72/M48s look.

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