Beta observations (belated)

[hogger88]

Overall

Kudos to all. My money is ready for Mac, Win and iOS (yes, I have issues). I’ve long awaited a late-war German campaign so I could access a few Panthers and such. The scenarios confer the requisite urgency and desperation to the situation in the late spring and summer of 1944.

It is also exciting to see some innovative design decisions such as the stunned units in the Cobra scenario (though I did spend two or three turns scouring the map and cursing thinking that the officers were already on the map – then they arrived).

I often found myself purchasing a Wirbelwind whenever I could. I was disappointed however, from a historical perspective at least, that I was not subjected to Allied air supremacy much (if at all – my memory escapes me).

Platforms

OSX and Win 8 interfaces both seem fine (to be expected from the engine at this stage) running on my 15" MBP. My concern chiefly concerns the Win 8 touch interface on my Surface Pro. I’ve used both the two- and one-button options on it, but the experience breaks down whenever I need to scroll. The iPad scrolling and touch interface are fantastic; perhaps some conventions could be imported from that platform/code to solve the problem. Touching the minimap tends to be inaccurate or tedious and switching on the keys/icons in the upper right (next unit and so on) can often be the latter as well. Interestingly, this does not seem to be an issue with the delightful Allied Corps (I know different developers are involved here, but there might be some Slitherine cross-pollination of use in this situation).

Grammar/language

Less vs. Fewer – As a teacher, I battle this all the time, so please forgive my grammar Nazi schtick. Many of the briefings, bonus goals, and artwork use “less” (“Lose less than X units”) when “fewer” should be used instead. NB – It looks like this has been remedied (at least in the scenario artwork) in 2.2.4. Many thanks from a curmudgeon!

Unit graphics/names

I know some have brought this up in other posts (or perhaps it was an issue in Allied Corps), so pardon my repetitiveness. I have always had a concern about the over-abundance of large, white Allied stars on many vehicles (also the occasional British roundel – great aircraft insignia, not so good on the sides of armoured vehicles). As others have pointed out, many US crews painted out the stars on the sides and glacis of their vehicles as they were “convenient aiming points for German gun crews.” Some remained on horizontal surfaces for aerial recognition. I imagine some mods will have taken these out, but it also might be nice to reduce the prevalence of these. (It seems that there are fewer around than when the game first came out.) Though the Sherman graphics in Husky seemed to make the white stars even more noticeable.

I have always appreciated the fact that the original game was quite “Allied” friendly (instead of M4 Sherman or US Sherman, it was simply Sherman), but the halftracks are still labeled as US M3 Halftrack (easy to change in the data files if I remember, but you are so good at updates to your products, my limited modding can’t keep up). It would be nice to change that.

Also, to be terribly nit-picky, only Guards Armoured Div. used the M5/Stuart VI. Most Commonwealth/Free Polish units used the Stuart V/M3A3 by this point of the war. It would be nice (an unrealistic hope considering the limited time of designers/programmers) to have a Stuart graphic that is halfway between the old Honey of NA and the US/FF M5.

JagdPanzers – gun tubes seem a bit stubby

TO&E

British/Canadian/Polish opponents

Archers? – I do not recall if Canadian forces employed the Archer. As many of us realize, Canadian Army units mirrored many aspects of British formations, but they did not, for example, utilize Cromwells. (Canadian armoured reconnaissance regiments utilized Shermans instead of the Cromwells that the British and Poles used.) I am travelling and have not been able to consult my Chamberlain & Ellis on the Archer’s employment. I was concerned with the appearance of Bishops in the Husky expansion (but did not have the opportunity to post on that (marking exams and writing student comments) as they were not utilized in combat beyond North Africa, at least according to what I remember from Chamberlain & Ellis. Also I noticed a Churchill in the Escaping the Pocket scenario – only British tank regiments used these at this point in the war. I suppose these could be the British coming down to relieve the Poles at the Mace but I think the Canadians were the “cavalry to the rescue.”

JagdPanthers – I was disappointed that I didn’t get to utilize one of these monsters despite them appearing in the art frequently.

Schlepper lash-ups but not Wespes or Hummels? – Great to see the new equipment (also that bizarre Hotchkiss/Stuka-zu-Fuβ) but what about the conventional SPAs?

Critical Hours

Tense. I suppose this is to emulate the late afternoon thrust of 21st Panzer Div. towards the shore. If I remember (principally from Hastings and Keegan) correctly, they were not the best equipped division (some S35s if I think). When I played this, I was guiltily pleased to have enough Panthers and PzKfw IVs. Perhaps the TO&E options should be a bit more sparse.

Also, it seemed when I pushed into the high ground with the trees, the Archers there did not react much to my units, even vehicles. This was in an earlier build though.

Holding the Heights

Great to play opposite the Crocs and Churchills in this scenario. (I also did an 8th grade diorama with the 6th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade assaulting the Germans on Mt. Pinçon.)

I will update with more notes from my replays. I also look forward to taking a stab at this on the iPad. Great stuff and thanks!

[pipfromslitherine]

Wow - thanks for such detailed feedback! I can't speak to the historical issues but I do know that we've never tried the game on a W8 touch device. Improving the interface on that device is probably a little too much to attempt at this stage for BA, but we will definitely look at whether there are any simple things we can do it help the experience in BA2.

Generally the scenarios tend to try and avoid heavy use of Allied air and support supremacy simply because we didn't feel it would be much fun to have the "hand of God" pound you periodically from above So we tried to come up with other ways to put the Axis on the back foot.

Cheers

Pip