I want to like this game. I hope it is great, and I hope it is what I will like. But I doubt if it will be.
I doubt if it will be because all of their other games (which I've tried but never gotten into) are simply too fast paced-they end up being click fests, and require an absolutely enormous amount of understanding (about modern equipment). They are all games that I want to love, but don't. They are games that look ideal but play far less than that.
Any game like this is struggling with pacing. Too slow, and its too easy-it is more like a boardgame than a RTS (or realtime game, as all the predecessors to this game are). Too fast, and the game is a clickfest, which rewards memorization of specific maps/scenarios/equipment minutiae rather than tactics (which I believe the previous games in this series to be).
So I understand the issues the designers are having to deal with. But when the game announcement brags about the number of different units/tanks (400!), rather than the tactical/operational skill required, I tend to suspect it is appealing to the same people that liked Wargame and Red Thunder (? I can't remember for sure).
I realize there are people who like those games-Paradox obviously sells enough of them to keep in business. But I really suspect they are limiting their sales by appealing to those folks rather than people like me, who want a decisionmaking, operational battle rather than equipment memorization fast click contest.
What would be my ideal pace? There are good games that aren't RTS (Combat Mission, for instance). Since they aren't Real time, they aren't what Paradox is looking at-again, I realize that. But the decisionmaking in Combat Mission was pretty good.
In terms of pacing, the closest wargame I can think of is Ultimate General: Gettysburg (note: I'm not saying that is the best wargame: I'm saying the pace of information-contemplation-decision was good). Its real time, and timing matters (flanking matters; racing for terrain matters, and so on). But its not a click fest. Looking at the maps, the scale of maps is very similar to the scale of maps in the images from Steel Divisions. So I would like to pretend that what Paradox is doing with SD is in line with what I'm suggesting; slow the pace down and reward good tactics and timing.
But I'm skeptical.
steve
I doubt if it will be because all of their other games (which I've tried but never gotten into) are simply too fast paced-they end up being click fests, and require an absolutely enormous amount of understanding (about modern equipment). They are all games that I want to love, but don't. They are games that look ideal but play far less than that.
Any game like this is struggling with pacing. Too slow, and its too easy-it is more like a boardgame than a RTS (or realtime game, as all the predecessors to this game are). Too fast, and the game is a clickfest, which rewards memorization of specific maps/scenarios/equipment minutiae rather than tactics (which I believe the previous games in this series to be).
So I understand the issues the designers are having to deal with. But when the game announcement brags about the number of different units/tanks (400!), rather than the tactical/operational skill required, I tend to suspect it is appealing to the same people that liked Wargame and Red Thunder (? I can't remember for sure).
I realize there are people who like those games-Paradox obviously sells enough of them to keep in business. But I really suspect they are limiting their sales by appealing to those folks rather than people like me, who want a decisionmaking, operational battle rather than equipment memorization fast click contest.
What would be my ideal pace? There are good games that aren't RTS (Combat Mission, for instance). Since they aren't Real time, they aren't what Paradox is looking at-again, I realize that. But the decisionmaking in Combat Mission was pretty good.
In terms of pacing, the closest wargame I can think of is Ultimate General: Gettysburg (note: I'm not saying that is the best wargame: I'm saying the pace of information-contemplation-decision was good). Its real time, and timing matters (flanking matters; racing for terrain matters, and so on). But its not a click fest. Looking at the maps, the scale of maps is very similar to the scale of maps in the images from Steel Divisions. So I would like to pretend that what Paradox is doing with SD is in line with what I'm suggesting; slow the pace down and reward good tactics and timing.
But I'm skeptical.
steve
