North German Plain 85 / Steel Beasts ProPE - A Crazy Idea

The games: HPS Sims' North German Plain 85 and eSims' Steel Beasts ProPE
The tactical situation: Soviet forces try to capture a crossing over the Wesser River at the city of Hameln. NATO armored forces are tasked with retaking the bridges over the Wesser and to hold against the Soviet armored forces attempting to link up with the desants.

Click the image for a better view.

I was playing the traditional turn based tactical/operational game North German Plain (map on the top of the image above) and got curious about how the attacks/defenses that are automatically resolved in the game would look and feel in the 3D world of Steel Beasts ProPE (pasted screenshot in the bottom of the image above).

Gettysburg - New Indie Wargame

Check this one out!

Gettysburg Computer Game

I briefly played it this morning before heading to the office and it was a very nice real time action. The scale of the maneuver units (apparently brigades) is very well chosen. I would have appreciated a map zoom feature (is it there?). Anyway, more on this one later today.

Cheers,

Future Force - Video Demonstration by CGSC Instructor

Future Force ... what it is and how it plays remains a mystery for many.

The video below is by Ken Long, one of the guys who conceived the game. Thanks to James Sterrett for pointing us to this video in this thread at Wargamer.com.



Cheers,

IL-2 Cliffs of Dover - Status Upgraded to "Playable"

Don't get too excited yet. Playable meaning that now I can go out and have a dogfight without worrying too much about frames per second and other performance annoyances. I have no idea how other parts of the game do work right now. From what I read, the campaign part is still in very bad shape.

I went out today as part of a flight of four Spitfires today and we fought four Bf-110s. Nice and long old-school dogfight.

Games for the iPad - Battle Fleet - Readers' Comments and Minireview

Some fellow readers were very kind sending their comments about Battle Fleet, an iPad strategy game.

Let's see what they had to say about it!

March to Baghdad - A Position Area Not for the Faint of Heart

On the charges of not paying too much attention to artillery units, only remembering them when the things go hot and I need them: guilty as charged, your honor ...

I'm trying to take better care of the artillery units and as I was playing the free wargame March to Baghdad, the position area of 1-10 Forward Artillery (FA) during the assault on Tallil airbase caught my eye.

TF 1-15 IN (blue icons in the lower right) is getting ready to assault objective Liberty. 1-10 FA (blue icons in the top left) are already deployed in a position area (PA). We are assaulting from the southeast and the artillery is already positioned past our objectives, in the northwest?

The creator of this game engine, Pat Proctor, is an artilleryman and if there is something screwy in his games I am sure is not the artillery part.

What happened here?

Future Force - Gameplay Notes About this New HPS Sims Release

Future Force was released last Friday by HPS Sims. 

This is a grand strategy game that lets the player manage a defense budget in a simulated conflict spanning 5 areas of operation. The player is in charge of mobilizing, deploying, re-deploying, refitting  and demobilizing five types of units (heavy brigade combat teams, Striker brigade combat teams,  infantry brigade combat teams, SOF groups, aviation brigades and engineer teams). Also, the player has the ability to allocate funds for strategic and tactical intelligence. There are costs associated with each of the activities mentioned above and the challenge is to allocate the right amount of funds and military assets to achieve victory. 

This is not a traditional war game and it may be a bit difficult to grasp what is all about without playing it. So I will be posting some notes and screenshots of a game that I played today.

  

Future Force's main (and only) screen.

Great Game, Poor Interface ...

Hello,

Just a quick entry before I leave to work.

Guns of August (Matrix Games) is a great WWI strategy game, but the interface is a bit cumbersome. Not only the buttons are in odd places, it also sometimes difficult to figure out what is going on game-wise (did my offensive work? how many losses did I take? etc).

I guess I will have to suck it up and continue the fight against the Entente and the interface ... :)

Cheers,

Jutland - The SMS Moltke Makes a Stand - Part 2

Due to heavy work load at my day job (end of quarter, yay!), I will be posting short and little these days. Looking forward for the weekend.


This is a continuation of a previous entry.


I read somewhere that in naval warfare the most important thing is the ability to make decisions quickly. I had my share of hesitation in this scenario. Keep my formation sailing towards the Canal or make a stand and confront the threat?


The British formation is approaching and I don't want to be caught with my ships negotiating the narrow Canal. I order the Moltke to make a sharp turn (actually an euphemism for a ship of this size) due north. In that way she can have all guns bearing the enemy.

The SMS Moltke has changed course north and now all guns are shooting at the enemy.

Games for the iPad - Battle Fleet

For the readers of the blog who have an iPad: check out the naval game Battle Fleet.



If you get it, would you be so kind to report back, please? :)

Cheers,