WWII....

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:35 am

First post...eh eh eh!

WWII? i am really looking forward to what you're bringing us here but i am also slightly worried as Hearts of Iron II is already a very complete game on WWII (i only have HoI 1 yet). What will be different?

Cheers

honvedseg · Post by **honvedseg** » Thu May 18, 2006 1:15 pm

HoI 1 was very annoying, in my opinion. It forced you to "reinvent" WWI technology, before you could even begin to develop WWII equipment. Even worse, the alignment of the US and a few other major players was pre-programmed, regardless of how the political situation in the game developed. At one point, I had gotten Germany on good terms with most of the western powers, although not with Italy, when Italy invaded Russia, taking the Crimea. The Russians responded by declaring war on Germany and invading. The US and Britain immediately also declared war on Germany, in spite of otherwise fairly amicable relations up until then. And then there were the outright bugs and crashes...

I am hoping for a more detailed "view" of the smaller "theaters" of the war, rather than the "big picture" overview of the entire war, although I don't want to see another "Panzer General" approach, where you were always trying to beat the turn limit to capture an objective city on the far side of the map, even when you were supposedly on the defensive. There was never a "hold this objective until..." scenario. In addition, everything in combat revolved around "initiative". Winning it allowed you to attack first, destroying or suppressing the individual "pips" of the opposing unit so the return fire was ineffective, whereas losing initiative lost you a lot of "pips" on your own unit, with little or no damage to the opponent. There wasn't a sense of "simultaneous" combat, where the various constituent units were actually shooting back and forth.

Until Slitherine announces more details about what the new game is and is not, all of this is purely speculation. Iain?

tora_tora_tora · Post by **tora_tora_tora** » Fri May 19, 2006 2:24 am

humm, how about bombers command? And as there is Britain in the map, so there could be fighter wings, I suppose.

And as the Ural is also included in maps, there could be some rules dealing factories, arsenals, sea ports, railways and so on.
As there are not so many games in strategic scale in this era, this means slitherine is practically the vanguard of this genre.

tora_tora_tora · Post by **tora_tora_tora** » Fri May 19, 2006 1:35 pm

http://www.4gamer.net/news/history/2006 ... etail.html

Here is news about Commander Europe at War and Arenea Warriors, in Japanese.

kafka · Post by **kafka** » Fri May 19, 2006 3:10 pm

ehm .... unfortunately I don't speak Japanese.

tora_tora_tora, would you be so kind to translate it?

antipasta · Post by **antipasta** » Fri May 19, 2006 3:37 pm

From the information you have provided this looks to be very similar to a game that I currently own called "Strategic Command: European Theater". Is this just a version update or are there major differences in gameplay, complexity etc?

tora_tora_tora · Post by **tora_tora_tora** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:48 pm

kafka wrote:ehm .... unfortunately I don't speak Japanese.

tora_tora_tora, would you be so kind to translate it?

I try to translate sentence by sentence. And if you cannot understand my bad English, it's my fault, and not the writer's.
I mean it's my sole responsibility.

イギリスのゲームデベロッパ Slitherine Softwareは,ファンタジーRTS「Arena: Warriors」と,第二次世界大戦ストラテジー「Commander - Europe at War」の2タイトルを発表した。

British gamehouse Slitherine Software announced their 2 titles, fantasy RTS"Arena:Warriors" and WW2Strategy"Commander-Eurpe at War".

　Arena: Warriorsは,世界征服を目論む軍勢と,それを迎え撃つ勢力との戦いを描いたゲームで,いずれかの勢力のリーダーとしてプレイできる。

Arena:Warriors deals the war of the army that seek to conquer the world against the army that wants to stop it, and player can choose either side.

　もう一方のCommander - Europe at Warは,第二次世界大戦での連合軍とナチスドイツの戦いを描いた,ターン制のストラテジー。本作はJavaをベースとしており,PCだけでなくMacintoshでも動作するとのこと。

The other, Commander-Europe at War, is turn-based strategy, allied against Nazi-Germany in WW2. This title is based on JAVA, so not only on Windows but also on Mac, you can play with.

　いずれも,パブリッシャや発売時期,価格は未定だが,すでに簡単な製品紹介ページが公開されている(Arena: Warriors,Commander - Europe at War)

Both titles' publisher and when and the price is still undecided, though rather succinct title site is already released.

kafka · Post by **kafka** » Fri May 19, 2006 8:26 pm

tora_tora_tora

thank you very much

tora_tora_tora · Post by **tora_tora_tora** » Sat May 20, 2006 1:07 am

You're welcome. And I want to prove Japanese market is really open-minded with foregin games(at least I really hope so).

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Sat May 20, 2006 3:28 pm

antipasta wrote:From the information you have provided this looks to be very similar to a game that I currently own called "Strategic Command: European Theater". Is this just a version update or are there major differences in gameplay, complexity etc?

If you mean it is a hex based WWII grand strategy game then yes it is the same as SC, Third Reich, Clash of Steel etc

SC however is developed by a different company and nothing to do with us, so the game engine is completely different, as is the AI etc. It will probably become more obvious what Commander EaW is about as more details are released!

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Sun May 21, 2006 1:21 am

Yeah, like Ian said, there have been many, many "hex-based WW2 Grand Strategy games" in the (OMG!) 35 years I have been a wargamer, some of which pre-date the PC revolution.

Yes, that's right. I am actually of the generation that cut our teeth on boardgames, with a hexgrid map and cardboard counters

At the risk of sounding like a shameless brown-noser, I have great faith that Slitherine will deliver to us a splendid game, destined to be a leader in the genre.

Why do I have this faith? Look at their track record. They've never released a bomb. Every Slitherine game I've ever played has been excellent to outstanding. And they've never screwed over their customers.

How many other game compamies can we say this of? I can only think of one, id software. By contrast, how many times have Sierra (to name one example) delivered us a steaming turd in a box, and charged us $50 for it?

Oh, and Tora^3, good translation! There's nothing wrong with your english

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun May 21, 2006 2:57 pm

Any idea if this will be a 2006, 2007, or 2008 release?

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Mon May 22, 2006 9:19 am

We've made good progress but don't want to set a date until we're sure. There is still a fair bit of work onthe AI & balancing, plus a lot of graphical stuff to do. It will certainly be before 2008, though how much depends on progress.

One of the advantages of being an independent developer is that you don't have a publisher telling you when the game has to be complete.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:58 am

Thanks for the reply.....I have bookmarked this forum and will be keeping an eye on this release. Good luck with this project!

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:55 pm

iainmcneil wrote: One of the advantages of being an independent developer is that you don't have a publisher telling you when the game has to be complete.

One more thing you have in common with idsoft

All they ever say about publication dates is "when it's ready".

firepowerjohan · Post by **firepowerjohan** » Mon May 22, 2006 8:16 pm

possum wrote:
iainmcneil wrote: One of the advantages of being an independent developer is that you don't have a publisher telling you when the game has to be complete.
One more thing you have in common with idsoft

All they ever say about publication dates is "when it's ready".

We intend and want to give a release date as soon as we feel our prediction can be accurate enough and not settle with less. We want the whole process of release date, game performance and patching to be quick and predictable to avoid failing to meet customer expectations. This is my first post on this forum and it will be a pleasure for me joining this site, Slitherine and the ppl that share our common interest i.e WARGAMING

p.s Iain is right, release date is before 2008 for sure.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue May 23, 2006 2:49 am

THank you, thank you, thank you. After watching for years all the many war games, turn based, hex oriented, for the PC, I am so glad to see somebody finally working for the Mac. Yes, HoI is there and I enjoyed the one game I played, but there were many flaws. I never tried HoI2. I love Paradox, so no slam to them. But I am very happy that you guys are on this. Count me in as a buyer!

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Tue May 23, 2006 10:04 am

Welcome Johan! Firepower has been focussing on game design & coding and as a reult hasn't even had time to design its own logo yet, so for now Johan will use the Slitherine avatar. I'm sure you prefer that they spend time working on the game rather than their logo anyway

scarfacetarraff · Post by **scarfacetarraff** » Wed May 24, 2006 12:25 am

firepowerjohan wrote: We intend and want to give a release date as soon as we feel our prediction can be accurate enough and not settle with less. We want the whole process of release date, game performance and patching to be quick and predictable to avoid failing to meet customer expectations. This is my first post on this forum and it will be a pleasure for me joining this site, Slitherine and the ppl that share our common interest i.e WARGAMING
.

Johan, I use the Macintosh platform, and I noticed that Mac OSX is mentioned in the platforms planned for "Commander - World at War." Will you guys also be handling the mac build? Will it be a hybrid build? I know VP Ltd. ported three of Slitherine's titles (Legion, Spartan, and GoT) over to the mac. Is there any news here you can share?

kafka · Post by **kafka** » Wed May 24, 2006 6:17 am

Johan, I use the Macintosh platform, and I noticed that Mac OSX is mentioned in the platforms planned for "Commander - World at War." Will you guys also be handling the mac build?

As far as I know, the game is developped on the java platform. So, all it requires is a java runtime environment on your system.
This dependancy leads me to another question: Will the gamme support future java versions?

WWII....

WWII....

WWII

Strategic Command: European Theater clone?

Re: Strategic Command: European Theater clone?