Warsim thread

[Strelok]

Games like WinSMBT, Combat Mission, Theatre of War, etc. ANyone else play these sorts of games.

Just gone back to Combat Mission Shock Force, which is about a fictional NATO Coalition invasion of Syria, doing the US Army campaign first, and having fun with it, The game acknowledges that a NATO victory would be inevitable, and that the only threat the Syrians pose is on the tactical level, and as such your goal is to win as overwhelmingly as possible. It's a bit buggy, and not as good as their WW2 ones like Fortress Italy or Battle for Normandy that came out after (or their earlier ww2 ones on their old engine, but the CMX2 engine is so vastly better at this point I'd rather not use the older games except for nostalgia trips), but still a good play.

That said even in Shock Force the later expansion probably are better, like the NATO module includes having to keep civilian casulties low as well as losing 15% or more of your task force in a mission twice results in losing the campaign as you become combat ineffective and are fluff wise assigned to rear duties. But I'd like to do them in order.

For MP I'd reccomend the WW2 ones as they saw the return of point buy armies in MP much like how tabletop games such as warhammer work, whereas in Shock Force (And the Standalone spinoff Afganistan about the Soviet War), MP is restricted to either premade missions, or prebuilt armies, although at least you can still do BLUFOR v BLUFOR instead of making one player play the doomed Syrians.

 

[Splendid]

I used to like SPMBT, but that interface was fucking terrible.

 

[Strelok]

I was told to dislodge some entrenched Syrian forces in the old airport hotel, and was reccomended to use infantry under cover of mechanized forces and smoke. I uhh.. took a different approach.

Thats 6x 155m howitzers firing sustained for 15 min at two buildings. Those howitzers were supposed to help me take the town and rebuff a Syrian tank assault, but I decided fuck that.

 

[Strelok]

Don't Fuck with the 82nd Airbourne.

Most of the men lost on my side were during a desperate defense on the outskirts of St Mere Eglise where we had the Germans in a pincer, but by the time the second group arrived, the germans had already gotten to the other side of an open field that we then had to retake.

 

[Fallensaint]

Don't Fuck with the 82nd Airbourne.

Most of the men lost on my side were during a desperate defense on the outskirts of St Mere Eglise where we had the Germans in a pincer, but by the time the second group arrived, the germans had already gotten to the other side of an open field that we then had to retake.

What game is this? Looks a lot of fun.

 

[Strelok]

What game is this? Looks a lot of fun.

Combat Mission, it's a long running series. The current engine (Which I define as, "when infantry went from being a representative peice to actual animated soldiers") ones are

Combat Mission: Shock Force which is about a fictional NATO (US Army, US Marines, German, Dutch, Canadian, British, with all expansions) invasion of Syria.
Combat Mission: Afganistan Third Party spinoff focuses on the soviet afgan war. Very buggy, limited content, dissapointing number of one off missions, best avoided.
Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy which is their flagship game that details the Normandy invasion up to and including Market garden, with a rumored 3rd expansion on the way.
Combat Mission: Fortress Italy similar to normandy but focused on the Italian campaigns, which had a much different combat style due to the terrain
Combat Mission: Red Thunder about the Operation Belgrade campaign, 1944 Eastern Front, aka when shit really started falling apart from the Germans on the operational level but the tactical level still could hold
Combat Mission: Black Sea about a fictional NATO-NewRussia conflict over the Ukraine. No idea the quality, dont own it.

It should be noted you must start at Normandy if you wish to do crack vs pairings like US vs Britian as there are few setpeice missions (the bred and butter for MP) made by the community for those, and Normandy is when they introduced random maps with a point buy system for forces like a traditional tabletop wargame. That said the nearly all designed scenarios can be played MP, and often represent specific small scale battles.

Both the SP and MP can be played in realtime or in a "wego" system where you update your plans after 60 second chunks, which makes managing large operations managable, and allows PBEM against someone instead of having to agree to sit down for 6 hours to reenact the 3 hour battle of Pavlov's House or what-have you.

Campaigns are single player only, and things like losses and ammo carry over mission to mission, so "throw the entire army at the objective" becomes a frankly terrible strategy.

They're all available here and all have demos.
http://www.battlefront.com/index.php

 

[DeadwastePrime]

I assume this war of mine counts. It technically is a war sim because it takes place during a civil war of a fake Eastern European country. Except you play as civilians who can't leave until the ceasefire. Really good game I've got like 130+ hours on steam.

 

[Strelok]

I assume this war of mine counts. It technically is a war sim because it takes place during a civil war of a fake Eastern European country. Except you play as civilians who can't leave until the ceasefire. Really good game I've got like 130+ hours on steam.

Eh I guess by the literal definition it's a war sim, but in genre terms a warsim basically means a strategy game that puts realism above all else and attempts to simulate what actual armed forces would deal with, including chain of command issues, logistics, morale, etc. Most have their ancestry in the pre video game days with tabletop games.

 

[millais]

i'm pretty excited for Hearts of Iron 4.

 

[Strelok]

i'm pretty excited for Hearts of Iron 4.

All I want is for it to be closer to HOI2 than HOI OOB Spaghetti Edition aka 3. No seriously, anyone who says they enjoyed HOI3s OOB system either never played as Russia, or is suffering from stockholm syndrome after managing to figure the damn thing out. I'm not joking when I say I'd rather deal with Dwarf Fortress's military system than HOI3's.

 

[millais]

All I want is for it to be closer to HOI2 than HOI OOB Spaghetti Edition aka 3. No seriously, anyone who says they enjoyed HOI3s OOB system either never played as Russia, or is suffering from stockholm syndrome after managing to figure the damn thing out. I'm not joking when I say I'd rather deal with Dwarf Fortress's military system than HOI3's.

Definitely. I've also read that the AI will be significantly smarter in HOI4 compared to HOI3, so they won't have to rely on overly gamey handicap balancing mechanics to make the AI feel challenging.

 

[Strelok]

Just got back into these games, and wanted to share a good detail shot. This is one of the things I really like about these games. Attention to detail like this. Wounded (not killed) troops still need to be treated by your field medics, reducing your available firepower as he's busy making sure the guy doesn't die. Dead troops still need a bit of treatment, but that's merely field stirpping them for equipment and ammo.

Edit: to clarify, in this sim (and i think i have modded icons), Green is healthy, yellow is wounded but still active, red with a white cross is incapacitated, and a straight red X is dead, not seen here. The bright part of the icon is unit facing, which is helpful when zoomed out.

 

[millais]

I recently discovered a real time tactics game called "Ultimate General: Gettysburg" that is pretty good at simulating the eponymous American Civil War battle. It was very easy to pick up, but the skill ceiling is reasonably high and there are many different speculative scenarios of the various phases of the battle that can be re-enacted in totally different ways. The line battle tactics and combat mechanics for infantry and cavalry seem to be pretty realistic and really hit the mark, though I think the artillery mechanics for things like line-of-sight and terrain elevation are a bit unclear. The AI is pretty decent as well, as it was apparently coded by the same guy who makes the Darth mods for the Total War games.

 

[AN/ALR56]

Hidden and dangerous is a nice blend of tactical strategy and team based shooter.
Basically you can control individual soldiers and control the 4 men team by a tactical overhead view of the map.
The second game is much more complex than the first one,but both have a nice soundtrack and memorable missions.
Dangerous waters is a modern sub simulator.
It's incredibly complex but you can have a ai crew to do most of the hard jobs.
But even with that it's pretty hard and challenging.
You have to identify targets on their sound signature, calculate their speed,check if it's a fake signal from the real source,calculate the distance and best targeting data to fire and maintain minimum sounds to avoid being sunk by a helicopter or destroyer.

 

[Strelok]

I present to you, courtesy of Shock Force's Opening Mission, the first 30 Seconds of the US Invasion of Syria. Now in SF, the game flat out says that strategic defeat is impossible, the real difficulty comes in bringing enough of our boys home every day to keep our spearhead unit at combat effectiveness, and not causing scandals at home through excessive casualties or, unjustified civilian losses.

There are many points where the Syrian Army and the irregular troops are dug in well, have some tricks up their sleeves, and can pose a realistic threat at the tactical level, especially in urban areas where their infantry can provide effective ambushes. The Iraqi Border Crossing mission that kicks off the first campaign is NOT one of those points. They are poorly equipped, poorly commanded, and in the most unfavorable terrain possible to fight what the US Army brought, namely Abrams.

T-O sec, the order is given for American Troops to cross over the Bern that demarkates the fortified border between Syria and Iraq. At approx T-10s, the Abrams reach the top of the berms.

One of them even begins firing already. Command notes that maybe, just maybe, the artillery spotters should have ear protection.

One T55 is down.

Two seconds later, another.

And Another.

And one more!

Syrian troops flee one of the border watch bunkers, having been trained to fight partisan skirmishers, not an actual army.

So, in all of 30 seconds, we have destroyed 4 T55s and routed a bunker of troops. IIRC even losing 1 squad's worth of men, or a single vehicle, in this mission is enough to lose your perfect mission rating, and it's pretty apparent why. Now granted, the real difficulty in this mission is taking the compound itself, not dealing with the tanks, but you have more than enough explosives between the tanks and Artillery to just level it, and the mission's civilian density is "None" so you don't even have to worry about it.

 

[Sexy Rexxy]

ArmA wasn't mentioned. Do you guys have beef with it? Just wondering as it's my go-to milsim.

 

[hitler_dindu_nuffin]

Combat Mission: Black Sea about a fictional NATO-NewRussia conflict over the Ukraine. No idea the quality, dont own it.

I own Combat Mission: Black Sea, and it's pretty good. The main complaint I have with it is that vehicle combat is basically just a dice roll now, due to all the modern gear like rangefinders and 120mm cannons. If you are playing anything other than Ukies vs. Russians, then tank and IFV/APC combat basically just boils down to who can get a las on the enemy tank first.

Spoiler: Some Screens of CMBS

Spoiler: BTR-90s

Spoiler: Outgoing Javelin missile

Spoiler: Russki infantry movin' up

Another good Combat Mission-esque game I'd recommend is Graviteam Tactis: Mius Front. Set on the Eastern Front and has a pretty dope dynamic campaign, with persistent units and things like supply lines and morale. I always loved that if you were fighting in an area you had previously fought in, all the old wreckages of your vehicles and fortifications would still be there. Pretty damn good game, if you can get past the awful UI.

ArmA wasn't mentioned. Do you guys have beef with it? Just wondering as it's my go-to milsim.

ArmA is great, have thousands of hours between all the games. I don't think any of the later installations compare to the original Operation Flashpoint though.

 

[millais]

Another good Combat Mission-esque game I'd recommend is Graviteam Tactis: Mius Front. Set on the Eastern Front and has a pretty dope dynamic campaign, with persistent units and things like supply lines and morale. I always loved that if you were fighting in an area you had previously fought in, all the old wreckages of your vehicles and fortifications would still be there. Pretty damn good game, if you can get past the awful UI.

Do you think it would be fine to jump straight into Mius Front without having played the earlier Graviteam Tactics titles? I heard Mius Front has added more complexity and additional gameplay mechanics that weren't present in the earlier games.

 

[hitler_dindu_nuffin]

Do you think it would be fine to jump straight into Mius Front without having played the earlier Graviteam Tactics titles? I heard Mius Front has added more complexity and additional gameplay mechanics that weren't present in the earlier games.

You'd be just as well off as jumping in at Mius Front as any other installment. Operation Star has a distinct content advantage over Mius Front, with DLCs allowing you to fight in a bunch of obscure Cold War-era conflicts, but Mius Front has a ton of cool new features and is generally more polished.

 

[Strelok]

I own Combat Mission: Black Sea, and it's pretty good. The main complaint I have with it is that vehicle combat is basically just a dice roll now, due to all the modern gear like rangefinders and 120mm cannons. If you are playing anything other than Ukies vs. Russians, then tank and IFV/APC combat basically just boils down to who can get a las on the enemy tank first.

Spoiler: Some Screens of CMBS

Spoiler: BTR-90s

Spoiler: Outgoing Javelin missile

Spoiler: Russki infantry movin' up

Another good Combat Mission-esque game I'd recommend is Graviteam Tactis: Mius Front. Set on the Eastern Front and has a pretty dope dynamic campaign, with persistent units and things like supply lines and morale. I always loved that if you were fighting in an area you had previously fought in, all the old wreckages of your vehicles and fortifications would still be there. Pretty damn good game, if you can get past the awful UI.



ArmA is great, have thousands of hours between all the games. I don't think any of the later installations compare to the original Operation Flashpoint though.

Graviteam was the game that finally made me promise never to complain about CM's UI and it's 30 slightly different move order types.