5 Weeks to Christmas Sale-Which to buy

[ravincravin]

5 weeks to the Christmas sale and I need help making decisions. Being A WIPAE player I'm looking to expand to the European front. Which one will it be:

MH Commander-Europe at War
Time of Fury
Strategic War in Europe

Which one has the most features and best AI. I'm more interested in playability over realism. I like a game that allows you a "what if" strategy. Your help and feedback would be appreciated by this ol' sarge.

[richardsd]

the AI in MH will not give you any trouble after a month or two, then you have to get creative with advantage and modding, so I woould say its below average in terms of AI,

other than that in PBEM which its designed for, its fantastic, easy to learn and very very hard to master

I haven't played a better WWII strategy game and there are lots of what if options

[Morris]

the AI in MH will not give you any trouble after a month or two, then you have to get creative with advantage and modding, so I woould say its below average in terms of AI,

other than that in PBEM which its designed for, its fantastic, easy to learn and very very hard to master

I haven't played a better WWII strategy game and there are lots of what if options

for sure , this is the best ww2 strategy game I have ever played !

[ravincravin]

Thanks for the input guys.

Yeah! AI always seems to be weak in computer games do to the fact that "it is" AI. It's always going to take 2nd seat to a human player. The question is, is it serviceable or is it dumb. Can it defend itself, perform an adequate land/sea assault, execute the navel and air war adequately or does it get stuck in some logic loop where I can kill off units without it reacting to correct itself.

If it's not dumb than MH CEaW may be the ticket I'm looking for.

[shawkhan]

MH CEaW comes into its own with Grand Strategy, with the GS2.1 soon to come out, it continues to have fans and lots of support. Consulting the Slitherine forums will confirm that it is the European equivalent of WITP.
You should probably play as the Axis if you want a more challenging game. You will probably lose to the AI for your first few games.
Playing as the Allies isn't really as hard as the Axis AI doesn't execute the well-planned offensives that are necessary for victory. In particular, the Axis AI has an unfortunate tendency to attack Swtzerland, and doesn't reinforce North Africa.
All in all, I have played this game off and on for years. No other better simulation of the European theater exists.

[avoran]

On the other hand, the Allied AI is extremely stupid in the west after the fall of France, sending unescorted transports piecemeal to invade German-held territory.

[ravincravin]

I guess not reinforcing North Africa could have an explanation such as needs in other theaters. Unescorted invasion convoys sounds dumb to me. The tendancy to attack Switzerland could be easily fixed. Hopefully the GS 2.1 patch will hone the AI and fix these problems.

After visiting the other 2 game forums it looks like MHCEaW is the lessor of 3 evils. With ongoing community support I would say it is my only choice so far.

Thanks guys.

[avoran]

The GS expansions didn't do anything with the AI - if anything it's worse because there are more options for it not to understand - but they did make it a MUCH better game by PBEM

[Christolos]

On the other hand, the Allied AI is extremely stupid in the west after the fall of France, sending unescorted transports piecemeal to invade German-held territory.

Hi,

The indiscriminate sending of Allied transports without escorts to invade German held territory is bad enough but I have I found that the Allied AI doesn’t even try to vary where it sends them. The AI in the game I am playing now (GS 2.0) keeps targeting the Normandy coast so all I have to do is lie in wait…which isn’t very sporting…

I also noticed that convoys tend not to be escorted as well…?

This is probably not the best place to ask but is there any way to mod the AI to have it escort its transports/convoys with more realism?

Thanks,

C

[BuddyGrant]

To play versus the AI in GS 2.1 you will definately have to mod some files as well as set some house rules to have an interesting game. As avoran mentioned some of the great new features of GS 2.1 negatively effect the human versus AI mode. That said, when modded properly GS 2.1 is still a better solo game than past versions of GS.

This is probably not the best place to ask but is there any way to mod the AI to have it escort its transports/convoys with more realism?

FYI, there is reply to this question here .

[Rasputitsa]

To play versus the AI in GS 2.1 you will definately have to mod some files as well as set some house rules to have an interesting game. As avoran mentioned some of the great new features of GS 2.1 negatively effect the human versus AI mode. That said, when modded properly GS 2.1 is still a better solo game than past versions of GS.

This is probably not the best place to ask but is there any way to mod the AI to have it escort its transports/convoys with more realism?

FYI, there is reply to this question here .

What would you suggest is a suitable modding package for GS 2.10 and where to get it.