Warsim thread

[Clown Doll]

I don't think any of the later installations compare to the original Operation Flashpoint though.

OFP had imo the best campaign in terms of narrative, atmosphere and structure.
Mechanically I think that ARMA 3 had a better campaign due to the fact that you could select different missions and it actually felt like you were conducting a guerrilla campaign against a numerically superior foe.

 

[Strelok]

OFP had imo the best campaign in terms of narrative, atmosphere and structure.
Mechanically I think that ARMA 3 had a better campaign due to the fact that you could select different missions and it actually felt like you were conducting a guerrilla campaign against a numerically superior foe.

ArmA 1 had a pretty good campaign layer too, in that each mission would have prep missions to do first, many missions were large scale assaults where you could jump between different soldiers for different parts, and so on. Unfortunatly the AI was dogshit. ARMA 3 also has the best MP as well, both modded and unmodded, and working with a group is where the game really shines. Even the King of the Hill pickup games are intense and interesting.

 

[Tranhuviya]

The Wargame series is pretty fun, if challenging. I love how you can just maneuver a small group of transport helicopters (carrying airborne infantry and special forces), recon helicopters, and attack helicopters to hit your enemy from behind. Then you land a command vehicle and take their starting sector from them.

Rocket pods, ATGM, and miniguns tend to wipe up any incoming resistance if your enemy isn't smart enough to place SAMS in his starting sector just to prevent such a measure.

 

[Strelok]

Wargame's pretty good, the devs went back to it after they made the mistake of trying to do a traditional RTS. Israel is the next nation pack IIRC. Still has a pretty active community for the third game.

They should have gone and made Ruse 2 tbh instead of trying to make a C&C rehash. That was a unique and fun strategy title.

 

[Strelok]

I remembered why I don't play Wargame immediatly post DLC. So many people playing as Israel now means the BluFor que is enormous. And I don't know where to begin making an effective deck for RedFor, and regardless don't fancy fighting the same damn nation every battle for two weeks.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Hey, does anyone here have the Chain of Command Artillery addon for OFP?

 

[millais]

Right now I am messing around with Ultimate General: Civil War, the sequel to UG: Gettysburg. It's really great so far, I like many of the new gameplay mechanics, such as the addition of rudimentary battlefield logistics requirements, customizable/upgradeable weapon loadouts, unit veterancy, and recovering/looting fallen weapons. The campaign mode is pretty challenging in contrast to UG: Gettysburg, though I'm not yet sure if this due to smarter enemy AI or the AI's huge numerical superiority.

There are a few annoying flaws though that I think are steps backwards from UG: Gettysburg. The pathfinding AI for brigades ordered to fall back is completely fucked, it was perfect in Gettysburg, but now they seem to purposely go out of their way to run into enemy fire or expose flanks. Also the mission objectives feel really ambiguous, like in defensive missions with multiple fallback points, they don't make it clear which point is the last line of defense, and they often give you objective timers but don't tell you what they mean.

So in my first full-scale set-piece battle defending the Confederate left flank at First Manassas/Bull Run, I ended up defending every river crossing and hill to the last man because there was no indication of which objectives could be overrun as part of the first line of resistance and which absolutely had to be held as the last line of defense. Since I couldn't safely give up a single objective, I ultimately sacrificed my entire "personal" division (not counting temporarily detached/transferred units that you don't get to keep) of two 800 man infantry brigades, a 7 gun battery, and a quarter of my 250 horse cavalry squadron. Kind of defeats the whole point of unit veterancy if I have to expend entire brigades to the last man to hold back the Union AI onslaught, but I'll have to see how the rest of the campaign holds up in comparison. On the plus side, I slaughtered a lot of Union cavalry vedettes and looted their badass Colt revolver carbines, which now equip one of my newly raised cavalry squads.

Here is Tom Preston, my divisional commander now without a division.

He looks pretty traumatized by the pyrrhic victory at First Manassas. Or maybe he's just horrified that 150 years later, Google search results for his name will list neither battle honors nor commendations, only inflation porn.

 

[Doc Cassidy]

Did anyone play the Close Combat games? I use to play A Bridge Too Far for hours when I was younger. I was always enthralled by how realistic they felt because you had to do things like manage morale or squads would desert the battle if they thought they were dying in vain. I'd never played anything like it.

The games are twenty years old but I bet they've held up pretty well, I should download it again.

 

[wholetthegodsout]

I have only played the older combat mission game Barbarossa to Berlin which used the old game engine. The new engine looks cool. Think I will get Normandy.

Kind of strange that the company does not sell their games through steam. Probably would make more overall sales.

 

[Clown Doll]

I remembered why I don't play Wargame immediatly post DLC. So many people playing as Israel now means the BluFor que is enormous. And I don't know where to begin making an effective deck for RedFor, and regardless don't fancy fighting the same damn nation every battle for two weeks.

My friend showed me Wargame : Red Dragon when the Finnish Army DLC came out and it was pretty dope .

 

[Ahriman]

Necro'ing this thread because I am kinda interested in this niche. I play Insurgency: Sandstorm on and off, but I've been eyeing ArmA 3 and SQUAD, in that order.

ArmA III has a metric fuckton of mods, seems like the logical choice.

What are you guys playing?

 

[Ahriman]

So, SQUAD is finally out of Early Access

Some gameplay

 

[HeyYou]

Arma 3 is good, but you need mods like ACE to make it not suck. I mostly use it for starsim mods.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Howst the fuck do you learn Wargame: Red Dragon?
I get Shock and Awed badly. I understand in a real-world sense what combined arms warfare is. What I don't understand is how to not instantly lose all my tanks in napalm hellfire as soon as the game begins.

My thinking was to manually make the most basic decks possible for both me and the AI - namely, ones without air and anti-air - and learn how to handle infantry and tanks fighting each other, then add in air elements gradually.

That, or get Steel Division real cheap and learn that since WW2 has to be easier to understand than the missile and helicopter clusterfuck that is the Cold War? But I spent actual money on Wargame already.

 

[Serbian Peacekeepers]

Howst the fuck do you learn Wargame: Red Dragon?
I get Shock and Awed badly. I understand in a real-world sense what combined arms warfare is. What I don't understand is how to not instantly lose all my tanks in napalm hellfire as soon as the game begins.

My thinking was to manually make the most basic decks possible for both me and the AI - namely, ones without air and anti-air - and learn how to handle infantry and tanks fighting each other, then add in air elements gradually.

That, or get Steel Division real cheap and learn that since WW2 has to be easier to understand than the missile and helicopter clusterfuck that is the Cold War? But I spent actual money on Wargame already.

I'm sure there a good videos on youtube regarding learning how to play, but i think games like Wargame are going to always require a bit of cheesing and fuckery.

I saw the Combat Mission series brought up early in this thread, thats a game series i've been interested in but could never learn how to play. I'm slightly too autistic, or not autistic enough, to learn to play them via reading manuals and shit.

 

[East_Clintwood]

I get Shock and Awed badly. I understand in a real-world sense what combined arms warfare is. What I don't understand is how to not instantly lose all my tanks in napalm hellfire as soon as the game begins.

I'd need to see some replay footage to figure out exactly where you're going wrong. In general napalm should really struggle to take out large amounts of armour, especially if it's artillery based (which I'm guessing it is since you said you're doing super basic decks without planes at first). Don't clump up, don't sit in the same spot for too long, use your own recon/artillery to find theirs and counter battery the shit out of them.

 

[Spider Princess Fan]

Howst the fuck do you learn Wargame: Red Dragon?

Handful on things that come to mind, also take into consideration that AI is a cheating retarded faggot who has no idea of tactics but has perfect vision unless your units are in cover and starting with normal and above difficulty level has increased unit count and resource income.

Spoiler: General

Always hide your units in forests ( and infantry in urban areas ), vision is incredibly valuable and its denial is equally so.
Do not 4 stack units, it may be easier to control but you pay for it with flexibility and constant overkill.
Unit morale is incredibly important, as pretty much all unit functions suffer as it drops down, suppressed units are dead units.

Spoiler: Logistics and command units

Command squads are perfect for hiding them anywhere within sectors, amphibious command APCs can be used on island maps or if you don't want to waste too much of your attention on transporting, disembarking and hiding command squads, command tanks are overpriced, positively not to be used in combat and generally are not worth it unless you're playing armored, do not take command copters.
Do not take more than 1 FOB, supply trucks are more reliable than copters, but latter carry more supplies and have better mobility at the cost of higher risk.

Spoiler: Infantry

Prioritize numbers and availability, 10men regulars with AT weapon + MG are the cost effective bread and butter of the game and should be present literally everywhere across the frontline.
Diversify transport options so you don't end up being stuck with infantry squads that cost you 30+ for their fancy IFV.
Infantry should be glued to forests and urban areas as they get tremendous defense bonus there.

Spoiler: Artillery

Gradually trades firepower for response time, mortars are for immediate fire support and smoke, tube artillery for area denial and heavy tube artillery are sniper railguns that deal megaton of damage after minutes of preparation.
Standard HE MLRS are horrible for killing units, but cover countrysides worth of space with unit suppression, napalm is perfect for forcing units out of cover while denying vision but also deals minimal damage to anything but infantry and unarmored vehicles, cluster munitions tickle infantry and obliterate vehicles.
Both you and your enemy can see each other artillery firing, reposition artillery after firing and pinpoint enemy arty when it starts firing to counter fire at them.

Spoiler: Tanks

Despite being toughest land units around they should still be treated just like other units, do not overexpose them, give them good vision and support.
Usually they tend to be grouped into three categories, super heavies ( +150 ) require a lot of attention and micro, but are a threat to pretty much anything, heavies ( ~100 ) that can generally perform well in all situations and fire support ( <60 ) which have enough firepower to bully light vehicles and assist other units without being to costly to lose.
2275m firing range is absolutely critical.
Game doesn't give enough of a fuck to tell you, but all the T-72/64/80/90s and Leclerc enjoy the privilege of having an autoloader, meaning that they do not suffer rate of fire penalties when their morale goes to shit, meaning that they feel a lot more confident during standoffs.
Kinetic [KE] weapons hit harder the closer they are to their target, increasing listed penetration by +1 for every 175m below their max range.
Kinetic penetration ( damage ) is capped at 30 and cannot oneshot units ( tanks ) with over 12 armor due to damage calculation formula.
HEAT weapons use very autistic damage table but basically they care a lot less about armor and can fire even at targets above their penetration values with some success.

Spoiler: Recon

Unit's optics refers to their view distance and ability to reveal units hidden in cover.
Recon units should be everywhere to provide you with vision, normal units do not have sufficient optics to do anything by themselves.
Do not buy units with "exceptional" optics, they are overpriced and realistically you'll never employ them to their full potential due to variety of factors.
Expendable good/very good optics unit such as various armored cars or recon infantry are preferable.
If recon unit has any weapons on them turn them off, they contribute infinitely more with vision than their firepower.

Spoiler: Vehicle tab

Mishmash of units, but generally you're only gonna see three things here: flamethrower tanks, ATGM vehicles and goofy direct fire support units like shilkas with removed AA equipment and double ammunition capacity.
Outside of ATGMs which can provide additional AT support most of the time you won't see anything good here.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

@Spider Princess Fan That is, the range on the vehicle guns is greater than the line of sight of the unit, so you need to spot for it. I was using recons on flanks hiding in forests, but wasn't using it in my lines.

The game is chock full of bad design, two of the worst being lack of a "move at speed of slowest unit" option and lack of clear Age of Empires-style fog of war. Also don't think it just outright says what a unit is. I know enough militaria to kind of guess. "1070 units" is really more like 20 or so, just with different combinations of what infantry and what transport or what transport for your command, different time and different country.

I've gotten a bit better by playing 3v3 where I can just preoccupy myself with one or two command points. I knew to garrison infantry but it seemed like they melted (despite guides saying they're nightmares in forest and cities), maybe I wasn't using enough, I'd deploy like one or two in a point.

 

[Spider Princess Fan]

I knew to garrison infantry but it seemed like they melted (despite guides saying they're nightmares in forest and cities), maybe I wasn't using enough, I'd deploy like one or two in a point.

They still have limits and shouldn't be exposed to enemy fire, it is a personal rule, but I'd recommend trying to count number of blocks within urban area and send equal number of infantry in groups of 2-4, depending on how much chokepoints there are, as for forest fighting it is a but of a hassle, but making sure that infantry goes ahead of IFVs can help out a lot during short range skirmishes because of another idiotic mechanic within the game which is never explained, that infantry are always fighting at 100% of their power regardless of number of currently alive members within squad, so they can sponge a lot of damage before totally expiring while ensuring that their support vehicle can safely fuck up anything they encounter.