This will be my out of game stream of thought thread :)

[MrsWargamer]

First off, game went up 2 more notches in my enjoyment level indicator

Sadly I am not able to immediately go and blather about this great game publicly. Man it sucks having a secret some days

Why exactly am I having so much fun you ask?

Ok picture a person that has just installed my favourite target for too darn complicated, the game War in the Pacific. Good luck playing this extremely detailed and extremely complex title.
Accurate can sometimes be a massive barrier. I'm sure WitP is a great game, I just don't expect to play it a lot. It's massively tedious too in addition to being incredible in it's other ways.
IT'S NOT EASY TO CALL IT FUN

Battlefield Academy on the other hand is extremely approachable, very easy to get into, and might be quite successful with the casual crowd in addition to the hard core gamer (like myself).
Thus far, I can't think of ANY platform this won't work on or doesn't belong on. I'd gladly play this on my PC, PS3, Laptop, and Nintendo DSi XL. I'm not saying I wouldn't buy this three times too just so I COULD play it on all 3 platforms. And if that meant 3x 50 bucks, I wouldn't automatically have a beef with that.

The graphics are just fine so far. I like the sound effects. The animations have been acceptable.
I'm catching the occasional gaffe (think they are errors) where a terrain tile seems to be mislabeled even though it appears to be the proper artwork for the location.

The interface seems like it will migrate well among various platforms (well I am saying that as it seems logical to make that conclusion).

As this is beta, I am expecting things to evolve. Currently when I exit the game, it doesn't ask me to save. It does seem to save as I was able to close game, load game and resume.
But it would be better to be asked to save. I'm also wondering if a Load saved Game is planned. Currently it is just a Play Game choice.

I'm liking the promotions concept. Also liking it is automated (appears to be so at least). I'm liking the additional options from promotions. The first I encountered was my 2 pdrs giving me an aimed shot option.

Enjoying the art works of the vehicles. Slightly less than photo real looking, but pleasing to the eye all the same.

But annoyed my infantry are occasionally hard to find I always counter that by chuckling, but aren't they supposed to be hard to find

I had some reinforcements arrive and was really bummed out that I couldn't figure out who the hell was in the truck/carrier. I drive up, and unload thinking I might have some infantry to attempt to recapture a position to discover I just dumped a mortar crew in a bad location We need a way of knowing who is in the truck by mousing over the truck or something. Unless I was missing the how to do this part.

Found I was not always able to SEE precisely what danged square was the actual victory location in order to claim it. Found one was a road square only after I had wandered through all the other squares first. Might be good if the square was coloured in a way that made it plain as possible. I have been finding the V symbols were not helping me.

A common beef in a lot of games I have played over the years, is I was never told 'oh you might get reinforcements during the game'. In ASL, it is well known what comes in when and where. If I had known I was getting some truck and carrier borne troops later, I'd have acted differently too in set up.
Liked the ease that initial deployment is though.

The part of pregame where you 'buy' troops. Well aside from seeing the points spent, it's hard to SEE what has been currently bought. I am assuming that some is not purchasable, but that is a guess. The units being different colours, is indicating this? It's not 100% intuitive. We don't have a proto manual yet do we?

I like how it is easy to see whether or not success is likely be through the pop up that tells hit chances and kill chances etc.
I'm finding when I have troops that have become suppressed etc, that detail is not always visually easy to notice. Found the white flag icon to be the only one I can recall seeing.

Will post more to this thread as I have thoughts come to mind that were not suited to the in game process. Sometimes I need to reflect out of game

[pipfromslitherine]

Glad you seem to be having fun!

You can load and save at arbitrary points by hitting ESC and then the file button.

If you select a unit which is carrying another unit, the carried unit is shown bottom right on the UI panel which appears showing the selected unit - you should be able to tooltip over it if the icon isn't enough of a help.

Infantry in buildings is a problem for sure - not sure how to fix it without everything getting pretty ugly -vs- visible.

Thanks for all your feedback.

Cheers

Pip

[adherbal]

Found I was not always able to SEE precisely what danged square was the actual victory location in order to claim it. Found one was a road square only after I had wandered through all the other squares first. Might be good if the square was coloured in a way that made it plain as possible. I have been finding the V symbols were not helping me.

if you mean capturing the tile where the VP effect is floating above does NOT change the VP's ownership, then that's a bug. So if you encounter that please report which mission and which VP.

[MrsWargamer]

Found I was not always able to SEE precisely what danged square was the actual victory location in order to claim it. Found one was a road square only after I had wandered through all the other squares first. Might be good if the square was coloured in a way that made it plain as possible. I have been finding the V symbols were not helping me.

if you mean capturing the tile where the VP effect is floating above does NOT change the VP's ownership, then that's a bug. So if you encounter that please report which mission and which VP.

I 'think' it was the V location far left of the map on the intercept the convoy battle (where I did a nice job of trashing them I might add ). The V location 'appeared' to be the squuare above the road square, but I think it registered only when I went onto the road itself. Made a sort of sense, but the symbol seems to be in the wrong place.

[MrsWargamer]

Sandstorm in the Desert. Man that is one nasty battle.

I thought I was winning then I wasn't then I was, then I wasn't.

I ended up getting owned though. Man not enough to attack with and not enough to hold onto what I had if I used it to attack.
And not enough means to lay on some high explosive, while the Germans seemed to have plenty of HE armour. Knocked out some PZ III and a couple of PZ IVs and was feeling happy, then lost my Matildas ironically to inferior armour

Trucks = pin cushions hehe, but oh well I do a nice job of shooting up theirs.

I will try this one another time before whining.

[pipfromslitherine]

I guess like real life, some bad luck can switch things around!

Trucks are designed as being pretty much paper-thin and flamable. They do (should!) release any cargo if they get taken out though - so it's not too bad. But they're not ideal for shuttling around combat areas that's for sure.

Let us know if it keeps defeating you.

Cheers

Pip

[MrsWargamer]

Sooooo in today's sandstorm the game got badly owned

Learned a nice lesson. 25pdr safe on a hill equals pound the enemy no matter where he hides.
Thus, first order of business, take the 25pdr and get it the heck out of the assault area.

Second lesson, hide yer trucks. Use them only after the armour has tricked a few positions to reveal themselves, then pound with 25pdr, then assault with infantry.

I have been finding the 2lber armed Matildas can duke it out with anything they get attacked with. Lousy luck can happen to the enemy too. Took out a Pz III in a 25pdr strike.

I have learned that infantry ALWAYS take casualties. Hey, it's war. The key word is patience I suppose and use the terrain.

Took all the positions and largely wiped out almost all the opposition on round two.
I give this game a gold star for being fair, and a gold star for not being immediately easy, but beatable if you use your head.

I am also scoring the game high for ease of play. If the average anal detail freak hard core wargamer doesn't like this one, their own loss

[pipfromslitherine]

Well, hopefully even when you lose you'll feel that you could have won, if only you knew what you know now!

Glad you're finding it simple to play. If you can give us more feedback as you go forward to other missions and campaigns that would be awesome.

Cheers

Pip

P.S. Writing down your tips - might help me be less of cannon-fodder in MP...

[MrsWargamer]

One thing that is frustrating me, is I am beta testing right? I feel awkward not finding much of anything wrong. Am I just not observant enough

I'm liking the simplicity of the interface though. Hard to hate mouse click choose option mouse click activate option.

I like the way the game reveals all the move options quite a lot. I'm liking the resolution level choices making it possible to play on so many different screen options.

I've been finding it is better to move many units small moves rather than use up a unit totally then move on. Often one unit will interact beneficially with the surroundings and reveal things you might have missed with another nearby unit.

Been finding it is better to pace your load, transport, unload choices very carefully out in the desert where cover barely exists.

The game seems to truly reward combined forces well.

[MrsWargamer]

Frontal Assault, once again, wish I had known about dem reinforcements

Artillery is queen in this fight. You get plenty of turns and I suspect most will just shove off and hope for the best. Nope.

Was not aware of what big arty looked like when I was slinging it (got shelled by it earlier though). The best route is move those two Bishops the hell out of danger and keep them safe. Again I knocked out two Panzers with direct support fire. The Bombers seem best suited to blasting obvious locations, the arty seems good at pounding larger area positions.

88s!!! I suppose they had to arrive eventually

First rule of this game, it ain't gone till the game says target destroyed. If it is suppressed, it ain't dead. Pound anything worth hitting till you see it killed.

I like that turrets fire and leave tanks facings alone on occasion, but lesson learned, adjust facing, then open fire, as you might be inviting return fire to a poor facing.
I'm just assuming facing means something at this point, as I don't think I have noticed anything to indicate otherwise.

I'm finding the map size is nice. There's never too much dead ground to cover sucking up game time. I am finding the numbers of units under command good.
Although occasionally I wonder at missing units. In this one (Frontal Assault) I was a bit panicky having no infantry at all.

I managed this one a victory, although I won't wait on the medal . All I had was the Bishop survivor in the rear, (lost one to a Panzer attack), and a Matilda that brazen decided to hell with it, good day to die, and went into the Supply depo solo, whacked the remaining PzIIIs and some 8 rads and brazenly scored the win. Granted the town was under barrage bombing run and 25pdr fire the whole time. Even managed to bash a wreck off the road.

Lost 2 Cruisers to a Pak at the last minute. Man I was fit to be tied

Overall, yet again, a good battle, a bit luck, a bit using your resources well and definitely a good example of knowing how long you will have, have long it will take to get there, and whether it would be best to pound the defenses first.

[pipfromslitherine]

There are different armour values for every unit for frontal, side, and rear (as well as top against artillery etc), so facing is very important.

You can force enemy to surrender if you get next to them and they are being fired on and you get their morale low enough, just to avoid having to try and grind down suppressed enemies in cover.

Thanks for all the feedback - glad you seem to have a positive view overall.

Cheers

Pip

[MrsWargamer]

Yes the surrender function I have found annoying when it happens to me of course

But I like how it is handled, simple, uncomplicated.

Actually, I have liked a lot of the 'simple uncomplicated' nature of the game so far.

Sure you can find fans of the excessively detailed I suppose. But I am willing to risk a guess, that you will sell more simple easy playable wargames, that complicated excessively detailed tedious ones.

[MrsWargamer]

General over all thoughts of the moment.

I want this on my Nintendo DS. No I WANT this in my DS.

But I will settle for you making it playable on something like the upcoming HP Slate (a thing much like the much ballyhoowed iPad). The HP Slate I am told will also run Windows 7, which means it should be able to run this game.

I'd like this on my PS3 too, but really, I'd be happy to buy an HP Slate just to have this as a mobile game option.
Might not even need any special consideration for the Slate if the thing is already running windows.

Essentially I see this game as a squad tactical level game that could be as successful as Panzer General if done right.
The market needs more wargames that are fun and easy to play. We don't need more complicated ones.

[MrsWargamer]

light goes on.

Was reading a post from Pierre and he mentions "MISSING_IDS_LOC_HILL" and it's like, holy crap I had that too, and never picked up it being an incorrect detail.

I got to pay more attention.

[MrsWargamer]

Played Rearguard.

It was too easy. Everything about it was too easy.

I had spare 2pdrs that never got used, I had 2 pdrs on portees that were mobile and played hell with the attack. I had spare infantry. Loved the 25pdrs again. Managed to kill half my enemy armour just with 25 pdr attacks.

The Stuarts were handy, but likely didn't need all of them. The trucks were useful as I used them to bugger off with the 25 pdrs to the rear. And even the loss of a couple of turns of use didn't hurt me.

Yeah over all I don't think the game was as tense as I think it was planned for.

Maybe deleting a 2pdr portee and a Stuart would help. Possibly one less 25 pdr would make the defense more desperate.

The second reinforcement group never even fired a shot. I sent them to set up ambushes along the route, but the Germans ran into a wall after the second objective.

[MrsWargamer]

Took a peek at Battle of the Bulge yesterday. My first battle was hmm how to say this, a major disaster I was totally owned.

I took heart though thinking, well that happened in real life right?

But the next time through I will at least know there are 3 waves of those damned Germans and to be a little more clever with my defensive positions.

[pipfromslitherine]

I find the Bulge a real challenge - although I am more of a Haig than a Patton to be honest .

I'm sure you'll find suitable strategies!

Cheers

Pip

[MrsWargamer]

HA! HA!

Man what a difference a second playing can make.

Ok I KNEW about the artillery barrage, so I cheated and just refused to set up in the fortifications on turn one, and moved IN to them on my second turn. Neener neener missed me hehe.

I put all my anti tank at the front, and it got experienced on the first wave so that by the third wave featuring Panthers the Panthers got their asses handed to them.

Heck my only regret, taunting a stug on the second last turn and it took out Two Shermans and an engineer team when the game was already in the bag.

Kept ALL the Victory locations, although I had to retake one twice. But I noticed a glitch (think it might have been a glitch not positive). I lost a Sherman on the V location, and no wreck appeared. Didn't see it brew either. I just assumed it was taken out, but hey I didn't see that either.

Either way, THIS time the Germans got owned. And yes, I learned to use mortars. First game I moved them too far back. They rock for killing infantry.

I have found thus far, if you screw up your artillery support, you lose the battle.

Oh and this game still rocks Most fun I have had in wargaming in a few years.

[pipfromslitherine]

Glad you are having fun! If you do have any niggles or problems, be sure to let us know though - every ounce of polish helps .

Cheers

Pip

[MrsWargamer]

Just ran through first try of 'Buying Time' and man those Tiger 2 sure are a bitch I couldn't kill one regardless of how I tried. But I was shooting at them with 57s and wasn't expecting miracles.

Like the Hellcats.

Urban fighting is a real blast.

Managed to pick the wrong road for my artillery fire initial guess But eventually was able to drop some hell on something. Never saw the targets but I heard them complain

I am finding that positioning anti tank guns takes real some planning, but I LIKE that the game isn't stupidly easy.

I am finding the AI seems to at least go after threats with some modest amount of logic.

Thus far I am very impressed with the graphics. Rather like the progressive blowed up look of the buildings when they get shot up.

I haven't seen anything that looks like disproportionate lethality in any one manner of unit. I think mainly it comes down to staging good traps.

Thus far, I have been finding winning or losing is a bit luck of the draw and making good choices.