Be Excellent To Each Other

So. I've been having a hankering lately. No, not just for sleep and booze (probably not in that order, were I to get them), but for a fully full on righteous strategic wargame thingy. Here's what I've got in mind.

Long ago on a 386 somewhere in Gloucestershire....

I used to love Falcon 3, which, as well as being a nerdly flight sim, allowed you to manage your missions and your pilots. You'd be given a squadron of F-16s, 30 pilots and a small stockpile of weapons. You could pick photos for each pilot and name them. Each pilot had various skills, and would gain experience through flying missions, and would get fatigued if they flew too many consecutive sorties. You planned each mission, including how many aircraft you wanted flying them, what each plane or section's mission is, what the waypoints were and what load the aircraft were each carrying. You would get intermittently resupplied with weapons, reserve pilots and replacement aircraft - and even had to go out and fly a mission protecting the supply planes.

That was an ace game. I loved it. I used to get quite upset when my favourite wingman got shot down by a SAM, as I'd put a fair amount of effort into making him the man he was. Sadly "the man he was" was, ultimately, one who was smeared over a large area of desert, but there we are.

Nerds at War

So I want to take that level of detail and transpose it into a strategic game. The set up would be something along the lines of you controlling either a small nation or a large combatant force, and you're at war with an enemy - either computer controlled or another human. You're either at war with the neighbouring country, or you're both fighting over a disputed territory, much like Everon in Operation Flashpoint. However, rather than playing as a grunt, you are in charge of the war. What I'm imagining is having complete control over the entire war - complete resource management, and control over the airforce, ground forces and navy, and how these interact. So, you have to set up your airbases, your SAM installations, the disposition of your armies, and where your navy is patrolling. You have to protect your industrial areas, and plot combat air patrols for your interceptors. You plan your armies attacks, and support them with SEAD strikes and CAPs. You have to seize enemy resources to fuel your advance.

You would also have to deal with supply issues - perhaps not down to the level of Falcon 3 where you were worried about the distressingly low number of Mavericks you had left prior to flying a close air support mission, but near enough. You should have to worry about whether or not you have enough AP rounds for your armoured divisions to make that last push into your neighbour's oilfields, and whether you have enough trucks to keep them resupplied. This supply issue is one that is continually missed in tactical and strategic wargames - even Civ4 doesn't really do it (except on the most basic and abstracted level possible - each military unit uses resources in its home town; but there's no problem with it operating two continents away from that supply, of course).

War! Huh! What is it good for? Unit selection, that's what

The other thing that is missing from most wargames that are set in a modern or near modern environment is that the unit progression is pretty basic - you have your APCs, your tanks, your aircraft. But there's very little (or no) progression within those unit types. Act of War, C&C and so on - there's very little choice of units. You just do your research, get the next biggest vehicle, and carry on.

Instead of having only one or two units within each unit category, I'd like a wider choice of units. I'd like to be able to decide whether I'm going to chance it with small numbers of hi-tech units, or swamp the enemy with large numbers of Soviet knock-offs. So rather than only having the M1 Abrams as a tank option (as in EVERY BLOODY RTS EVER), I'd like to be able to have the option of buying, say, contemporary but cheaper and less capable Type 88s from China. Or the slower, but better armed and armoured Challenger. Or, even, buy older, much cheaper and less capable units like Centurions or M48s and see how they do. Similarly in the air. I'd like to be able to go for a budget airforce - rather than only have the option of F-15s, I'd like to be able to make the decision to bulk buy cheap Hawk jets and stick old Sidewinders on them and use them to support the cheap-ass Buccaneers carrying iron bombs. Or buy shedloads of Mirage 3s, load them up with crappy Matras and see how they fare against the enemy's smaller numbers of Mig-29s and SU-27s.

As well as making the strategic decisions, I'd like to be able to then take over on a tactical level, and take command on the battlefield - perhaps even down to the individual units.

This may be drilling down to a level of granularity* that is borderline obsessive, but I love micromanagement and I'm pretty certain I'm not on my own there. Most RTSs are too simplified and, to be honest, all end up playing exactly the same as Dune 2 did. I'm not sure what the market for strategic level games is, other than Civ 4.

So, if there isn't a game like this already, and if noone makes one, I may have to design my own table-top and pens and paper version based on a map of the Isle of Wight or something.



* Shhh, I was talking to a management bod recently and some of it rubbed off.

I think the biggest problem you've got with most of that is that more choice = more artwork = more cost.

Every flight sim ever has 6 squillion types of units, though. And they're done in 3D.

Flight sims are fast though - they can get away with low detail models because you never really get more than a glimpse. If you're watching tanks trundling around, people are going to want more than a wireframe box.

Have you played any recent flight sims, Cras? The ground units are stupidly detailed. See also - tank sims.

I'm not sure it's the artwork that's prohibiting this.

Are there any grand-scale wargames out there other than Civ 4?

To be honest no - I'm working on the basis of Falcon 3, which may not be a great reference point.

You might like blitzkrieg. It's not what you described, but has elements of it - loads of tank and artillery types, and a better concept of supplies than most RTS games. You have effectively infinite ammunition and manpower*, but in order to use it, you need a safe supply line - supply trucks carry ammunition and men from the warehouses, and you can't replace trucks. Lose all your trucks and you're most likely screwed, as you can't waste artillery or tank fire, and can't replace infantry losses (and in most cases you can't move your artillery either AA guns either, so they'll most likely get shelled to death if you use them). Also, you can't build or buy units. At all. What you get at the start is all you will have, unless you're lucky enough to get reinforcements (which you can't count on), or you capture the enemy's guns.

It's flawed, as it's a little too random, the mission briefings give you no useful information and you never have enough time to scout around or dig in before the enemy find you and attack, and the pathfinding can be rather infuriating, but it's got its charm and appeal. And you don't have to prick around with resource gatherers, for once. Also it's the only RTS I can think of where simply throwing 50 of something at anyone who comes near you wouldn't work even if you had 50 of anything - a single dive bomber or well-placed anti-tank gun can wipe out everything you have in seconds if you're not careful. And if you are.


*infantry can be moved as a squad or split up and commanded individually. As long as at least one member of the squad survives, you can replenish that squad to full strength. Hence, the only sensible course is to split the officers (who are poorly armed, but carry binoculars, making them second only to the scout in recon ability, but much less rare) off from the grunts, and when they all get slaughtered, reform any survivors and top up their ranks.

Mmm. Something more continent spanning and high level would be nicer and more in keeping with Mr C's original concept.

Aye, but when it comes to RTS games, there's so little innovation that anything a little different is usually a welcome change of pace.

Blitzkrieg sounds fun, actually - I'll hunt that out, thanks.

I'd still like something a little larger-scale - are there not any games like Risk on the PC?

Well there's Risk.

Still I want the best of both worlds. I want large scale campaign management, but I also want individual accurate tanks or tank battalions, not 'armies'.

Hardy har har.



No, *I* want that. Stop stealing my game.

Well you moved onto wanting Risk, which totally confused me, as it's the total opposite of everything you were asking for in your first post.

C&C 3: Kane's Wrath, Global Conquest Mode is exactly what you're looking for. Global map with strikeforces, not armies. Each individual battle is resolved either automatically, or in real time RTS play. Your choice. Strikeforces can be customised to suit.

I obviusly meant "Risk with lots of detail".

Is there *anything* at all on the PC that is a large scale wargame? There were a bunch of hex-based ones for WW2 a while back (Panzer Generals, or something?) that covered the entire of Europe, near enough, but I can't think of any modern ones.

Cheers, CG - sorry, posts crossed - I wasn't ignoring your response with my last one!

As an aside I just downloaded and had a quick razz on the classic F22 Raptor Demo. I remember playing this game a lot in my youth. I say game, I mean demo. I fly everywhere and destroyed everything, just for fun, and because I didnt want to buy the full game.

Did you ever play Harpoon? That was detailed enough, but on a smaller scale than what you are after.

It does sound interesting, although probably fairly limited in appeal. I'm a nerd though, so I;d probably like something like that. You'd have to be able to offload some of the work if you wanted though. Make General Smith in charge of your airforce, and he'll work out what to do with the resources provided, and try and give you support if you give him enough warning.

As you say, it would be interesting to manage a whole campaign - El Presidente says to you "I want us to seize X within 5 years - I am putting you in charge!" and then it's up to you.

Hearts of Iron 2?

Oooh - me likey the look of that. Shame it's WW2, though.

They do lots of quite similar games from a lot of time periods, but WWII is the most recent, I think.

(I had some fun with Crusader Kings, which basically consisted of me sitting in a couple of provinces in Wales, hoping nobody attacked me. I then tried to make myself a bit more powerful with some well-placed marriages, but control of my provinces went to a daughter, which meant that her husband got control and as he was from another family my dynasty was ended and it was game over. Was quite a shock at the time.)

Actually, I have just discovered through the magic of The Internet that the makers of Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis have made a modern type game called Supreme Ruler 2020! And it looks nerdly as all git out!

Anyone heard of it?

It's going to be crap, isn't it?

I've never heard of that.

I reckon it'll be almost great but ruined by bugs until the third major patch, at which point it will be absolutely brilliant if you like that sort of thing.

It looks almost exactly like what I'm after, actually, with extra bells and whistles like international trade and diplomacy and holding elections and such.

It's 100% definitely going to be crap.

72% average on GameRankings.

Damning with faint praise - it's 1% off the Score Of Doom.


Sod it - for £14 off Amazon I'll give it a punt at some point. After I've tried Hearts Of Iron 2 at £4.

Supreme Ruler 2020 looks terrifying.

I wish I could find the Mac version of Hearts of Iron 2 for £4.

Punted. I'll let you know if it's worth it.

Does it have a multiplayer option? Can you *imagine* the turn lengths if we were playing with the Bo-hweemoth?

EDIT - yes it does. Oh lordy me. I'll get a copy.

All well in reach of the larger studios though. The main problem would be getting them (or rather their backers) to go for such a novel concept.

Particulary as it's not really designed for consoles, and that's where the money is.

Mr Chris, you mention Operation Flashpoint and yet don't (seem to) know about MFCTI? MFCTI does a lot of what you ask - it is Flashpoint crossed with Battlezone (the largely forgotten but astonishing first-person RTS from 1997).

You get the entirety of one of the huge islands in Flashpoint. Capture and hold towns to earn money, use money to build bases to research and build units and soldiers, send soldiers to subdue the local resistance and eventually start scrapping against your opponent (who has started on the other side of the island)

Your 'choice of units' thing is there - a fleet of cheap T-55s or a few deadly T-80s? Mi-17s with rockets or the V-80 gunship?

Also present is your choice of command. You can sit in the base, supervising the construction and research efforts while ordering your AI and human squadleaders around, issuing directions via the map and radio. Or, you can requisition a vehicle for yourself and lead the army into battle.

MFCTI.SOURCEFORGE.NET

You, Mr Japanese Pron Angel, are AWESOME.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

That will do nicely - especially with Supreme Leader 2020 to play with as well, that's my massive wargame desires satisfied.

If you like, I'll hook up my old laptop up so we can play a few games (it's not nearly as good against AI, and it will hammer your processor as each AI builds their own squad, etc etc etc).

If I'm very lucky, I'll still have the UK Forces version that some guys I used to play with off the PC Gamer forums made - MFCTI, but with all the UK forces mods!

http://www.pukf.net/forum/

Oooh - awesomes. I'll mither you when I've got it sorted.

Did you ever try the close combat games? They are a bit old now but the squads you started with were all you had and you had to use cover suppressing fire and artillary support for advancment. I think they were sorely underrated.

Hmm. I'll take a look at those. I think they're on the Underdogs site.

Has anyone heard of World In Conflict, and is it any good? I came across it whilst looking for Supreme Ruler on Amazon and it looks gorgeous.

War! Huh! What is it good for? Fantastically rendered battlefields full of death and destruction, that's what! And fully deformable terrain! FULLY DEFORMABLE TERRAIN.

World in conflict is an RTS with little to distinguish it.

I now have Supreme Ruler 2020. It makes me cry. I don't understand anything.

Oh. But it looks really pretty. And it's a modern warfare RTS, which is much better than silly robots or men with swords and such things.


Awww, bless.

Did you just call robots silly?