A suggestion to increase replayability infinitely

[insidius]

First things first: I have not played this game yet, but I'm hoping to be able to afford it soon. It looks great, and I love just about everything turn based. It's a genre I'd like to see revitalized and this is a good first step towards that.

Now on to my suggestion.

There is a game called John Tiller's Campaign Series. You may know it as West Front, East Front II, and/or Rising Sun; it came out in 1998 and is 12 years old. I still play this game (even now!) Why? I'll tell you why: because it's challenging and because they had a feature in the game that basically made it infinitely replayable, called the Dynamic Campaign.


The Dynamic Campaign was basically a series of linked scenarios in which you had a persistent army through each and were sometimes given reinforcement between each mission; each scenario that came next was dependent on how you did in the scenario before it. Each mission or scenario was randomly generated, with random objectives on a randomly generated map, so each game was basically unique every time you played it. When starting a Dynamic Campaign, you had a choice of an infantry based army or a tank based army and could choose your force organization, such as 67th Infantry Battalion, for example, depending on what nation you were playing. The campaign length depended on how well or how poorly you were doing and lasted anywhere from 11 to 20 something missions. I've been playing this game for almost 10 years and I still haven't finished an entire campaign (attrition is a *&^%).


This one feature extended the life of this product indefinitely and I haven't seen a single game since do this that I have enjoyed.

What do you think? Will BA ever see a feature like this down the road?

[LOGAN5]

I would say probably not, although I have nothing to do with the making of this game so who knows. There are 3 campaigns and multiple objectives, for example you can win a scenario completing the main objective but there are 4 or 5 secondary objectives that you can try for. Once multilpayer is fixed the game will have plenty of replay, and you can make custom maps (I have yet to try), the good thing about this game is that you can just "create" a game and people can just join from the server makes it very easy to find a game instead of trying to setup an e-mail game with someone on a forum. You will like this game if you like John Tiller stuff, it is actually pretty realistic for a game, in other words you are not just going to be charge a MG42 across an open field with infantry and expect to make it. Also slugging it out against Heavy armor with a light tank is a suicide mission.. you will like the game it is worth it and I don't say that about many games I am usually highly critical, but I can't find any bugs or problems in the gameplay other than multiplayer is not fixed yet. So once that is fixed you will have your replayabliity.

[insidius]

Thanks for your response.

As far as JT's Campaign Series, that game all the features you describe, plus the Dynamic Campaign and that was way back in 1998. I would think programming something like this in wouldn't bee too terribly difficult, it was just be time consuming as far as testing goes and what not. It would be a great addition for people who like to play single player, and for down the road if people for whatever reason stop playing MP (years from now, I mean).

Don't get me wrong, I love Multiplayer, but for a game like this that goes reasonably fast in terms of playing speed, I would really have liked to have seen a traditional MP mode in addition to the PBEM mode.

Anyway, I hope the developers take these things into consideration, either for this game and this iteration, or for an expansion/sequel.

[LOGAN5]

I see your point, but 12 years is a long time. I really don't see myself playing this game single player for 12 years, most wargames that last for more than a few years at least have PBEM. After a while playing against the AI gets a little stupid, it is a lot more satisfying to know that your opponent is actually thinking things through and you are outplaying him, rather then just a computer running through a pathfinding algorythm.

[insidius]

To each his own, I guess. My point was that even after 12 years, Campaign Series is still a great game because of its features and as long as I've been playing it, it's still challenging and fun, even single player (and I'm a huge MP supporter).

I agree that playing against a human is far more fun, which is why I would have liked to see a traditional 'real time' MP mode in this game.

In any event, I don't see how this suggestion could possibly detract from the game at all.

[MesaDon]

Hey I have those games too including the Arab / Israeli war one. I still reload them on my machine and with the degree of adjustment for the AI it can still be a challenge. No matter the age the great games are still fun or otherwise Monopoly, Risk, etc. would be out of print.

[pipfromslitherine]

There is actually the ability to use campaign-scope scripting which would (should it be desired) allow for carry-over of units from one mission to the next. We don't make use of this feature, so I am sure once someone tried to implement such a custom campaign it might bring up little tweaks which would be useful, but we are nothing if not responsive to feature requests.

Cheers

Pip

[insidius]

There is actually the ability to use campaign-scope scripting which would (should it be desired) allow for carry-over of units from one mission to the next. We don't make use of this feature, so I am sure once someone tried to implement such a custom campaign it might bring up little tweaks which would be useful, but we are nothing if not responsive to feature requests.

Cheers

Pip

Great, thanks for the reply. I read about your viewpoint on unit experience and upgraded units carrying over (and why they don't), so if this was ever implemented, unit veterancy could be extremely slowed down, or taken out completely.

If I had the scripting skills, I would totally write up a dynamic campaign type mod, but as it is, I'll just worry about acquiring the game to begin with.

[PoorOldSpike]

The JT Campaign Series has appallingly-bad graphics and the game system is nothing to write home about, it's played mostly by a dedicated band of disciples and no newcomer to wargaming will touch it, BattAcad puts it in the shade.
As regards campaigns, BattAcads excellent scenario editor/creator allows players to create sets of individual themed scenarios which can be strung together to make a sort-of campaign with a little imagination,,:)

[insidius]

Serious wargamers could give 2 *&^%$ about graphics as far as I've noticed, me included.

I sent you a PM by the way, not sure if you've checked it yet.

[PoorOldSpike]

..Serious wargamers could give 2 *&^%$ about graphics as far as I've noticed, me included..

Call me weird, but if I'm going to be staring at a screen for hours at a stretch I'd like the graphics to be halfway decent..
BattAcads graphics are a bit cartoony but a whole lot better than the JT Camp Series.

[Sleet]

Those were some of the best games I had in JT's series. Good call insidius.

With Pips, mention that there is options to carryover units, this makes it that much better.
With that in mind, would there be options to rename in game? Or name your unit?

I have not delved into the scripting editor as of yet. too much fun playing!

Graphics are not that important compared to gameplay, but now that we have good ones in BA, all is good.

[Rosseau]

Yep, I still play Campaign Series and Divided Ground sometimes. Like Steel Panthers MBT, they are sometimes a lot of work, though. BA is prettier and quicker and still gives you more modding options without the sometimes crushing depth of detail in CS.

[insidius]

Yeah, the scenarios don't even have to be that detailed either, just move the objectives on the map around a little bit, randomly decide who is attacking and who is defending (or if both parties are attacking), randomly generate the terrain and you're set.

Mostly just behind the scenes coding, but I'm not sure personally how difficult something like that is.

[pipfromslitherine]

Randomly generating pretty and interesting (and realistic) terrain at this scale is not trivial .

Cheers

Pip

[insidius]

Come on, Pip they did it in the 90s!

Give it a shot!

[pipfromslitherine]

You've got to remember the kind of fashion sense they had back then .

But at the scale we work at, you really want to see buildings match up with roads, match up with the surroundings etc. And that's without the fact that people can (and will) create their own tilesets with different attributes.

Random forces and positioning is perhaps more likely.

Cheers

Pip

[insidius]

Awww.

You have murdered my hopes and dreams.

I forgive you.

[pipfromslitherine]

Well, I am aiming to get scripted tile and object placements in quite soon, so maybe someone will make a script which creates a random map for you .

Cheers

Pip

[Igorputski]

This one feature extended the life of this product indefinitely and I haven't seen a single game since do this that I have enjoyed.

You obviously haven't played Matrixgames "Panzer Command series:Kharkove and Operation Winterstorm" as these are far better than the World at War series and you can play 100 scenarios in a campaign and you can even create how you want the series to unfold in time and areas. Best random Campaign series game I've played since Steel Panthers World @ War Mega Campaign series.