Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
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Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Hard to model variations like that in the game, since the plane stayed pretty much the same for the duration. Guess you could give them leaders in `41, assuming they would be killed off as the Allies get stronger.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Hi all,
my two cents: just began Pacific Allied campaign, Pearl Harbor defence, difficulty level 2. The Japanese attack waves quite didn't attacked my ships. They launched a pair of torpedo attacks against one of my Battleships (sinking it) and bombing runs against the eastern island depot. Except this, they simply retired waves after waves. It resulted an easy and quite boring scenario. Too low difficulty level? Anyway i expected much more determination
my two cents: just began Pacific Allied campaign, Pearl Harbor defence, difficulty level 2. The Japanese attack waves quite didn't attacked my ships. They launched a pair of torpedo attacks against one of my Battleships (sinking it) and bombing runs against the eastern island depot. Except this, they simply retired waves after waves. It resulted an easy and quite boring scenario. Too low difficulty level? Anyway i expected much more determination
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Well, just try it at difficulty level 5 if this level is too easy for you, no? 
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Note that you can change the difficulty level between scenarios, so if you decide it's too easy, or you've bitten off more than you can chew, you can adjust without having to restart the campaign.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
or just cheat with the cheat keys 
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
So, I have finished the Japanese campaign (on Normal or whatever the middle difficulty is called) and I guess it's time for some "second glance impressions".
By and large, I am still as fond of the things I pointed out liking in my first impressions, though I gotta say the most positive one is probably supply - it really made for some interesting situations throughout the campaign. Fairly generous supply generation of captured objectives usually means you can forget worrying about it after a while, but there's the occasional situation where you fall out of supply or have to keep your warships anchored to keep the ground troops going. I liked that.
I also stand by my statement about lessened combat lethality, though it falls apart a bit in the late campaign. I found US planes COULD gang up on me and destroy a full strength unit in two attacks.
On the other hand, I had to assault a Superfortress four turns in a row with three Zeros to bring it down. Thankfully it didn't move...
Anyway, infantry remains a viable choice through to the end, and in fact is often a better one than armor, even without an equivalent to PG/PzC's "close terrain" rules.
There are some "mad rushes" for secondary objectives, but by comment about generous turn times also remains true through to the end - the last mission even has 100 turns even though I finished it in less than 50.
But now for some more nitpicking, having seen all Japanese scenarios:
Upgrading units to discounted upgraded versions is generally too expensive. Sometimes FAR too expensive. Why do I have to pay 80 to upgrade to an almost identical unit?
On the other hand, the prices for destroyer upgrades, for example, are very moderate.
There's a major scenario design failure in the Japanese campaign in that there are no or too few airfields in basically all missions. This means any non-carrier based aircraft hardly gets any use.
Too many things in the missions require hindsight. Can I take this place behind the line with paratroopers or a marine landing? Moving to this exact spot will make the entire enemy fleet come at me, but if I stick to this course or that, I can take them on picemeal? Oh, my entire fleet will be removed by event, leaving my carrier aircraft without a place to land.
Moving a aircraft here will trigger a large fighter assault which WILL cost me my plane.
I don't have a perfect solution, as sometimes having those things is probably a neccessity, but the frequency got a bit on my nerves.
There's too much thick jungle in the island-hopping missions. Moving 20 INF one tile at a turn for 50 turns isn't exactly fun. Australia is the other extreme, though - here you can often breeze across the map with light INF.
Naval combat is a bit over the place. I like how it encourages players to have a variety of ships in it, but it's rules are often non-intuitive. Why does this cruiser do up to 4 damage and this other, identical cruiser only 1, at the same range in a similar position? There's also a reliance on "knowing" stuff that'll only happen next turn. You might say it rewards good "planning ahead", but I think it rather feels like the lottery.
I really, REALLY miss the "terrain info" when hovering over any hex from PzC. It's often hard to identify what something is - is that a swamp? Does this tile on the border of a forest already count as forested? Is this bridge destroyed? Not to mention the aforenamed "How is this city called?".
PzC had this down to an art, you just had to look and copy. And there's plenty of room in the UI, too. I saw in the preview screenshots that you're still not going for a proper implementation but are solving the place-names issue by having "name-bubbles" hovering across the map, and it boggles my mind. Just copy PzC and be done with it, FFS!
Too many of the "specialities" you can pick up over the course of the campaign either have a clearly better pick or none that's good at all. I picked Wunderwaffen as the last pick, for example - but you get the Tiger 1, which is totally outdated by that point and there's a Japanese tank available that is clearly better, as it's attack is basically identical, but it trades some defense for much-needed mobility. And you get a Nebelwerfer which looks like the '40 or '41 model as well - again, totally outdated stuff.
The assumptions the campaign makes about the war in europe are a bit ridiculous, with the Nazis beating the UK and the Soviet Union.
There's NO branching and (despite some long term effects of secondarys objectives) thus no choice & consequence in the campaign, which is still rather short. PG had what, 30 missions? IIRC the Japanese campaign has 12 or 13. Sure, you can point to the fact that there's also an allied campaign of equal length - with good reason - but I for one would have preferred a larger, branching Japanese OR US campaign to having pocket-sized campaigns for both. I know you have plans for additional content, and I'm looking forward to it - but it leaves a bit of a sour "nickel and diming" aftertaste in my mouth as well.
I have to repeat my performance comment from the initial impressions, the computer chokes so on resolving the AI turn, if you have a MP3 running in the background it begins to stutter.
The game also crashed or semi-crashed on me a couple of times. The semi-crashes are particularly interesting - the UI apparently broke down, but I could restore it by alt-tabbing out of the game and alt-tabbing back in.
Same about the bugginess - especially the ghost unit bug hit me several times. One circumstance seems especially easy to reproduce - landing paratroopers on an airfield on which there's already an aircraft parked...
But let me end on a positive note, despite all these nitpicks, I enjoyed my time with the campaign and still consider the purchase money well spent. Thanks for making the game, and here's hoping a few of the rough edges will be smoothed in time.
_____
rezaf
By and large, I am still as fond of the things I pointed out liking in my first impressions, though I gotta say the most positive one is probably supply - it really made for some interesting situations throughout the campaign. Fairly generous supply generation of captured objectives usually means you can forget worrying about it after a while, but there's the occasional situation where you fall out of supply or have to keep your warships anchored to keep the ground troops going. I liked that.
I also stand by my statement about lessened combat lethality, though it falls apart a bit in the late campaign. I found US planes COULD gang up on me and destroy a full strength unit in two attacks.
On the other hand, I had to assault a Superfortress four turns in a row with three Zeros to bring it down. Thankfully it didn't move...
Anyway, infantry remains a viable choice through to the end, and in fact is often a better one than armor, even without an equivalent to PG/PzC's "close terrain" rules.
There are some "mad rushes" for secondary objectives, but by comment about generous turn times also remains true through to the end - the last mission even has 100 turns even though I finished it in less than 50.
But now for some more nitpicking, having seen all Japanese scenarios:
Upgrading units to discounted upgraded versions is generally too expensive. Sometimes FAR too expensive. Why do I have to pay 80 to upgrade to an almost identical unit?
On the other hand, the prices for destroyer upgrades, for example, are very moderate.
There's a major scenario design failure in the Japanese campaign in that there are no or too few airfields in basically all missions. This means any non-carrier based aircraft hardly gets any use.
Too many things in the missions require hindsight. Can I take this place behind the line with paratroopers or a marine landing? Moving to this exact spot will make the entire enemy fleet come at me, but if I stick to this course or that, I can take them on picemeal? Oh, my entire fleet will be removed by event, leaving my carrier aircraft without a place to land.
Moving a aircraft here will trigger a large fighter assault which WILL cost me my plane.
I don't have a perfect solution, as sometimes having those things is probably a neccessity, but the frequency got a bit on my nerves.
There's too much thick jungle in the island-hopping missions. Moving 20 INF one tile at a turn for 50 turns isn't exactly fun. Australia is the other extreme, though - here you can often breeze across the map with light INF.
Naval combat is a bit over the place. I like how it encourages players to have a variety of ships in it, but it's rules are often non-intuitive. Why does this cruiser do up to 4 damage and this other, identical cruiser only 1, at the same range in a similar position? There's also a reliance on "knowing" stuff that'll only happen next turn. You might say it rewards good "planning ahead", but I think it rather feels like the lottery.
I really, REALLY miss the "terrain info" when hovering over any hex from PzC. It's often hard to identify what something is - is that a swamp? Does this tile on the border of a forest already count as forested? Is this bridge destroyed? Not to mention the aforenamed "How is this city called?".
PzC had this down to an art, you just had to look and copy. And there's plenty of room in the UI, too. I saw in the preview screenshots that you're still not going for a proper implementation but are solving the place-names issue by having "name-bubbles" hovering across the map, and it boggles my mind. Just copy PzC and be done with it, FFS!
Too many of the "specialities" you can pick up over the course of the campaign either have a clearly better pick or none that's good at all. I picked Wunderwaffen as the last pick, for example - but you get the Tiger 1, which is totally outdated by that point and there's a Japanese tank available that is clearly better, as it's attack is basically identical, but it trades some defense for much-needed mobility. And you get a Nebelwerfer which looks like the '40 or '41 model as well - again, totally outdated stuff.
The assumptions the campaign makes about the war in europe are a bit ridiculous, with the Nazis beating the UK and the Soviet Union.
There's NO branching and (despite some long term effects of secondarys objectives) thus no choice & consequence in the campaign, which is still rather short. PG had what, 30 missions? IIRC the Japanese campaign has 12 or 13. Sure, you can point to the fact that there's also an allied campaign of equal length - with good reason - but I for one would have preferred a larger, branching Japanese OR US campaign to having pocket-sized campaigns for both. I know you have plans for additional content, and I'm looking forward to it - but it leaves a bit of a sour "nickel and diming" aftertaste in my mouth as well.
I have to repeat my performance comment from the initial impressions, the computer chokes so on resolving the AI turn, if you have a MP3 running in the background it begins to stutter.
The game also crashed or semi-crashed on me a couple of times. The semi-crashes are particularly interesting - the UI apparently broke down, but I could restore it by alt-tabbing out of the game and alt-tabbing back in.
Same about the bugginess - especially the ghost unit bug hit me several times. One circumstance seems especially easy to reproduce - landing paratroopers on an airfield on which there's already an aircraft parked...
But let me end on a positive note, despite all these nitpicks, I enjoyed my time with the campaign and still consider the purchase money well spent. Thanks for making the game, and here's hoping a few of the rough edges will be smoothed in time.
_____
rezaf
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Thx for the feedback 
I agree with many of your points. It might be difficult to please everyone though - for example I'd prefer terrain labels, but not-invasive on-map directly, rather in the UI like you said (IIUC). But my impression from some posts here was that other player want exactly that - labels visible directly on the map?
Re campaign - IMO it's somewhat more difficult to design for the Pacific than for Europe, since there was so much going on simultaneously 1941-42 that it becomes problematic to have way more scenarios, and still keep a logical campaign path depicting all this so that it includes the main battles without "overlapping". For example we went for the Phillippines after Pearl - that automatically excludes other battles, like the Burma-Singapore fighting vs. Brits or the pre-Java battles of the Dutch East Indies campaign going on roughly at the same time.
I agree with many of your points. It might be difficult to please everyone though - for example I'd prefer terrain labels, but not-invasive on-map directly, rather in the UI like you said (IIUC). But my impression from some posts here was that other player want exactly that - labels visible directly on the map?
Re campaign - IMO it's somewhat more difficult to design for the Pacific than for Europe, since there was so much going on simultaneously 1941-42 that it becomes problematic to have way more scenarios, and still keep a logical campaign path depicting all this so that it includes the main battles without "overlapping". For example we went for the Phillippines after Pearl - that automatically excludes other battles, like the Burma-Singapore fighting vs. Brits or the pre-Java battles of the Dutch East Indies campaign going on roughly at the same time.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
There's a modder who did an outstanding pacific campaign for PzC. Maybe you should hire him!bebro wrote:IMO it's somewhat more difficult to design for the Pacific than for Europe, since there was so much going on simultaneously 1941-42 that it becomes problematic to have way more scenarios, and still keep a logical campaign path depicting all this so that it includes the main battles without "overlapping".
Oh.
_____
rezaf
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Hehe But who'd do unit models then...
But who'd do unit models then...
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Speaking for myself, I would prefer a solution with an on/off toggle of the terrain labels. Many info on the map sometimes are really useful, sometimes just a distraction.bebro wrote: for example I'd prefer terrain labels, but not-invasive on-map directly, rather in the UI like you said (IIUC). But my impression from some posts here was that other player want exactly that - labels visible directly on the map?
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
I'm going to have to stop playing for a few days since I'm out of town, so I'm posting my first impressions of the US campaign:
I pity anyone who plays this first and thus has his first impression about OOB formed by the allied campaign.
Defensive missions basically suck in all games of "the Panzer General genre", and unfortunately, OOB is no outlier.
You can win the scenarios allright, and even successfully achieve all secondary objectives (I'm still playing on Normal), but there's not much fun to be had.
I lost half a dozen core units in one mission alone, and identified two main reasons:
a) The game is SUPER stringy with handing out resources, so you run out of reserves too quickly.
In the third or fourth mission (the one before the fleet battle, which I haven't played yet), you even get no resources at all. Maybe the secondary objectives give out a pittance, but not NEARLY enough. I ended the mission with less than 10 prestige, five units lost and many battered, with like 2 STR points left. Even though I had suspected stingyness and left 250ish in the bank, it wasn't nearly enough to cover my expenses.
I don't know if there are just no "regular" resource grants in the game, but as Japan you are constantly capturing objectives, so you also have a constant "cash flow" - but in these first few missions as the allies, you are constantly retreating... It's a harsh, unwelcoming introduction to the game (thankfully I was introduced by the much friendlier Japan campaign).
b) Now, I might be imagining this, but Allied units seem to be both a little more fragile AND a little less prone to retreat. This leads to many a situation where an INF unit will hold it's ground despite being severly battered, and the next attack from a full-strength japanese unit will then obliterate it. That's how I lost most of my core units.
The OOB allies campaign is now a serious contestant to the "Kick in the Balls" award for the worst player introduction to a campaign in a Panzer General'ish title in my book - only bebro's own PzC japan campaign is able to give it a run for it's money. And that one is kinda hard to beat, with it's "here's a peashooter. Here's a paper tank. There's the cream of the soviet army. FIGHT!" angle...
I hope the allied campaign will become much more bearable once we're going on the offensive.
_____
rezaf
I pity anyone who plays this first and thus has his first impression about OOB formed by the allied campaign.
Defensive missions basically suck in all games of "the Panzer General genre", and unfortunately, OOB is no outlier.
You can win the scenarios allright, and even successfully achieve all secondary objectives (I'm still playing on Normal), but there's not much fun to be had.
I lost half a dozen core units in one mission alone, and identified two main reasons:
a) The game is SUPER stringy with handing out resources, so you run out of reserves too quickly.
In the third or fourth mission (the one before the fleet battle, which I haven't played yet), you even get no resources at all. Maybe the secondary objectives give out a pittance, but not NEARLY enough. I ended the mission with less than 10 prestige, five units lost and many battered, with like 2 STR points left. Even though I had suspected stingyness and left 250ish in the bank, it wasn't nearly enough to cover my expenses.
I don't know if there are just no "regular" resource grants in the game, but as Japan you are constantly capturing objectives, so you also have a constant "cash flow" - but in these first few missions as the allies, you are constantly retreating... It's a harsh, unwelcoming introduction to the game (thankfully I was introduced by the much friendlier Japan campaign).
b) Now, I might be imagining this, but Allied units seem to be both a little more fragile AND a little less prone to retreat. This leads to many a situation where an INF unit will hold it's ground despite being severly battered, and the next attack from a full-strength japanese unit will then obliterate it. That's how I lost most of my core units.
The OOB allies campaign is now a serious contestant to the "Kick in the Balls" award for the worst player introduction to a campaign in a Panzer General'ish title in my book - only bebro's own PzC japan campaign is able to give it a run for it's money. And that one is kinda hard to beat, with it's "here's a peashooter. Here's a paper tank. There's the cream of the soviet army. FIGHT!" angle...
I hope the allied campaign will become much more bearable once we're going on the offensive.
_____
rezaf
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BiteNibbleChomp
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Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
rezaf wrote: "here's a peashooter. Here's a paper tank. There's the cream of the soviet army. FIGHT!" angle...
Very true! That's why I never got past mission 2 (well, I kinda got distracted by other things as well and do hope to return )- BNC
Ryan O'Shea - Developer - Strategic Command American Civil War
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Man, the US campaign makes me really fed up with this game.
I made it through the Japanese one easy peasy, but the other ...
The Coral Sea scenario seems downright ridiculous. Even cheating wouldn't help, as my main issue is I just cannot make it in time to reinforce Port Moresby, which is attacked by a swarm of destroyers and a cruiser. I cannot hold the line with the tiny blocking force as the japanese just obliterate them by sheer force of numbers.
And then the transports land unopposed when my reinforcements still have three turns or so to go.
I tried to rush planes there, but the japanese have such a huge airforce it isn't even funny.
If I could at least use the darn airfield in Port Moresby, but noooooooooo, it's neutral.
I think I'll call it quits with this retarded campaign and replay the Japanese one or shelve the game for the time being.
I made it through the Japanese one easy peasy, but the other ...
The Coral Sea scenario seems downright ridiculous. Even cheating wouldn't help, as my main issue is I just cannot make it in time to reinforce Port Moresby, which is attacked by a swarm of destroyers and a cruiser. I cannot hold the line with the tiny blocking force as the japanese just obliterate them by sheer force of numbers.
And then the transports land unopposed when my reinforcements still have three turns or so to go.
I tried to rush planes there, but the japanese have such a huge airforce it isn't even funny.
If I could at least use the darn airfield in Port Moresby, but noooooooooo, it's neutral.
I think I'll call it quits with this retarded campaign and replay the Japanese one or shelve the game for the time being.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
You need to place some ships in the port moseby area on set up.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Yeah, you can deploy your own naval force there. With some carrier-born planes it becomes rather easy to fend off the invasion.
On a funnier note, I made the same mistake in my 1st playthrough (deploying only in the east of the map), got owned, and then found out it's better to change deployment...
On a funnier note, I made the same mistake in my 1st playthrough (deploying only in the east of the map), got owned, and then found out it's better to change deployment...
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Lol, I wasn't even aware you could do that - obviously.
But this being a "first impressions" thread, I think everything is as it should be.
In other words, the scenario (and/or UI) does a horrible job of informing the player that deployment in the west is possible.
Just saying.
I'll try restarting the scenario tomorrow- thanks for the heads up guys.
But this being a "first impressions" thread, I think everything is as it should be.
In other words, the scenario (and/or UI) does a horrible job of informing the player that deployment in the west is possible.
Just saying.
I'll try restarting the scenario tomorrow- thanks for the heads up guys.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
I didn't deploy units in the East either and yeah, the game really doesn't give any hint you can do that.
After a while in this scenario you get some extra naval points and placing 1 Destroyer and 1 Patrol Craft are enough to defend Port Moresby.
The auxiliary force that spawns near Port Moresby just has to head South, all Japanese ships except for the transports will follow it. Your fleet can steam in from the East an defeat the smaller Japanese Fleet in the center in detail and continue further West to defeat the Carrier "above" Moresby.
After a while in this scenario you get some extra naval points and placing 1 Destroyer and 1 Patrol Craft are enough to defend Port Moresby.
The auxiliary force that spawns near Port Moresby just has to head South, all Japanese ships except for the transports will follow it. Your fleet can steam in from the East an defeat the smaller Japanese Fleet in the center in detail and continue further West to defeat the Carrier "above" Moresby.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
I got owned on that scenario too. Completely missed that I can deploy forces below Port Moresby. On my second try I didn't deploy forces there either, until to the point where you get 5 extra naval command points. Just enough for a single Battleship. That was fun.
Too bad the USS BB-61 Iowa was not available in this scenario already.
The shockwave from firing those guns. Just wow
Too bad the USS BB-61 Iowa was not available in this scenario already.
The shockwave from firing those guns. Just wow
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Take such a long time to read all these lol. First stop rezaf point out a few good point ie paratroopers which happens to be my favorite and expensive yet the got kill because no supply lol. Other points like the US campaign I would not agree with rezaf. Its super fun to play US IMO better than IJ and the key is always correct force deployment which make this game super fun. Deploy the wrong force you get owned lol.
Note: On coral all I did was deploy a small carrier to defend Port and use it to refuel my bombers and honestly naval battle is superb in this game all the hidden rules ie move and fire stationary fire for you and opponent and after sometime you will understand that a cruising destroyer at max speed at easy to hit with a battleship but if it stationary and so are your battleship just look at the effect lol it will knock out that destroyer so fast lol. But still i hate IJN cruisers lol they have torpedoes which can knock out my battleship but my cruisers dont have that ;( so rushing BB with CA for US side aint fun lol.
Note: On coral all I did was deploy a small carrier to defend Port and use it to refuel my bombers and honestly naval battle is superb in this game all the hidden rules ie move and fire stationary fire for you and opponent and after sometime you will understand that a cruising destroyer at max speed at easy to hit with a battleship but if it stationary and so are your battleship just look at the effect lol it will knock out that destroyer so fast lol. But still i hate IJN cruisers lol they have torpedoes which can knock out my battleship but my cruisers dont have that ;( so rushing BB with CA for US side aint fun lol.
Re: Fantastic game - here's my first impressions
Well, in this particular case, it was the player who was retarded - the game does a bad job of informing players about possible staging grounds, but more careful examination of the map should have "solved" this issue.
I still like the Japanese campaign better so far and think the first few US missions are slightly too difficult - or rather, slightly too tight, in giving you too little prestige to repair your stuff.
On the other hand - I think I wrote it earlier in the thread - the scenarios where the player controls the side that's supposed to lose are usually not the best scenarios in this kind of games.
_____
rezaf
I still like the Japanese campaign better so far and think the first few US missions are slightly too difficult - or rather, slightly too tight, in giving you too little prestige to repair your stuff.
On the other hand - I think I wrote it earlier in the thread - the scenarios where the player controls the side that's supposed to lose are usually not the best scenarios in this kind of games.
_____
rezaf