Playing BA for the first time

[uran21]

After trying out the Demo I decided to go for this game. Acquainting strategy was to start with Tutorial and continue with Campaigns how they are lined down.
I would go with the missions how they appear without replaying them to get all achievements but replaying only if I fail to complete basic mission objective.

Reading the manual, for me, is always a good read but before doing this I like to familiarize myself with how the game feels from practical experience. Gameplay basics and UI that is. Battle Academy not being an exception I played for a while before looking at the Manual.

Playing missions for the first time I could not meet all achievements but felt going for basic mission objective was rather easy. Knowing something about WWII combined arms tactics does help but hey playing the game for the first time I got impression it is rather casual. Obviously achievements add to the replay value of missions and increase the challenge.

So I was resting in sensation of false security when I get to Tiger ambush mission and... lost for the first time.

This was a great experience and motivated me to look at a game in more depth.
Enemy defeated my forces piecemeal and overrun victory points. Indeed I used infiltration tactics to get them back into my possession but on the last turn enemy did the same to me with the last undefended victory point of my own. I did gave a stiff fight and inflicted lot of damage but most of my air and artillery strikes missed the target due to bad calculations and damage inflicted to my own forces was unsustainable even with reinforcements.

So I found myself replaying the mission with a cup of coffee during the planing phase making detailed and precise decisions about unit placement.
Plan was to trade space for time. To gather all of my forces together at one defensive line with defense placed in depth. Armoured columns would get passed
the concealed infantry and stopped by tanks and anti-tank guns and than finished off by infantry from the flank and rear.

Plan worked immensely with utter defeat for the enemy and all of achievements met with only 5 loses to my own side. It is interesting how loss can cause frustration to some players and motivate the others. At this point I have hunger for more in depth knowledge about the game and would like something like comprehensive manual. Knowing more about how Line of Sight / Line of Fire and fire of opportunity works comes to mind.

I am thrilled with user interface. Comic like style, graphics in general, rich interactive experience, simple panels and usability.

All in all very nice, fun, fast paced and addictive game.

And before I forget, music is awesome!

[pipfromslitherine]

Thanks for the positive feedback - very much appreciated! I think you might enjoy the detailed tooltips that are coming soon in the next update.

Cheers

Pip

[random27]

Now you can go on multi to fight against other players

[uran21]

I certainly do plan to play multiplayer as well but at this point there are still single player campaigns to be finished.
With careful revealing of assets trough out the game I have a feeling not everything was still presented to me.
Besides that replaying missions with attempt to met all achievements adds to the challenge.
At this point biggest enjoyment with the game for me is to play remaining missions while attempting to improve tactical skill.
Knowing more advanced game rules comes handy here. Part of my interest to it was fulfilled by reading Battle Academy Wiki.
Especially part on opportunity fire, extracted tips that are hard to read in game due to fast loading and section about penetration.