I finally got into Steel Panthers

[Korgan]

Getting used to the mechanics took some time, but now I'm loving both WinSPMBT and SPWW2. Started a random historical campaign in the latter and it's amazing how incredibly real and natural it feels. You can precisely recreate a Red Army Special Battalion, or a similar task force, from structure to tactics, just by learning to play and broadly following real military writing. There's, say, a heavy infantry company, a recon company, varied armor, SP guns and two infantry support detachments; over a few battles you'll make the same mistakes historical commanders made, and finally learn to use combined arms with a personal approach, on any scale, in any terrain. E.g. I don't rely a lot on artillery or basic infantry, preferring lots of special forces and snipers, a few heavy tanks and long-ranged SP flak, with assault engineers and unarmored AT bought for one battle as they'll take the most casualties. The general principles are always the same, but your choices as a commander are not based on some bullshit game balance, but on your personality and common sense.
This is unlike e.g. Close Combat where the maps are much smaller ,have just 1 or 2 routes and you can only choose the right *units* for the task, not the *task* your favorite units are best at. Turns take a lot of time and the end of battle mop-up is repetetive, but otherwise it's the best battalion/regiment-level game I ever played.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Steel Panthers, the game I wish I was playing instead whenever I'm playing some newqfangled realtime shit games.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I played these games to death. Even hosted a Steel Panthers forum many years ago. Good old SSI.

 

[commie]

Steel Panthers along with Panzer General were the first games I got for my 486 back in 1995. They hold the record for the longest time without uninstalling of any of my games. SSI was truly legendary back in the day...

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Panzer General 486

BRO!

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Steel Panthers along with Panzer General were the first games I got for my 486 back in 1995. They hold the record for the longest time without uninstalling of any of my games. SSI was truly legendary back in the day...

This would be the case for me as well, except Close Combat 2 and 3 (with the many campaign mods that were made) slightly outlasted them. They have since all found a home again. Add Allied General, Pacific General, Panzer General II and Peoples General to the mix.

And I have to say it; I love SP1. The soundtrack, the difficulty, the little video's between missions...British fighting the Japanese in 1939 with matilda II's in the jungle. Brilliant stuff.

Just out of interest commie, have you tried firefight?
http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/ff.html

It is another one of my little staple games I keep on hand with each computer. Sounds like it might be up your alley as well.

 

[Elwro]

Great for you, Korgan. A fantastic game!

 

[commie]

This would be the case for me as well, except Close Combat 2 and 3 (with the many campaign mods that were made) slightly outlasted them. They have since all found a home again. Add Allied General, Pacific General, Panzer General II and Peoples General to the mix.

And I have to say it; I love SP1. The soundtrack, the difficulty, the little video's between missions...British fighting the Japanese in 1939 with matilda II's in the jungle. Brilliant stuff.

Just out of interest commie, have you tried firefight?
http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/ff.html

It is another one of my little staple games I keep on hand with each computer. Sounds like it might be up your alley as well.

Hell yeah, The early CC games are one of my fav's as well. As for the General games, had almost all apart from Pacific and Fantasy. Couldn't find them anywhere where I lived in Australia at the time. PG2 also passed me by even though I planned on getting it. I had taken a break from wargaming/strategy in 1997 and had spent a year or more with FPS/RTS/Flight Sims exclusively. Thank fuck for Underground Gamer as last year I finally have been able to complete my Generals collection(I know these are available at Abandonia type sites, but at UG I found the proper CD ones, and Fantasy General just deserves the proper soundtrack treatment). As an aside, I prefer PG 1 over PG II: it had a slicker presentation, good videos, that officer giving briefings was hilarious, the branching campaign was the best of any General series and the graphics were cleaner and easier to tell apart terrain compared to the nicer looking but less intuitive PG II maps..

SP 1 was my favorite of the SP series, but spend a lot of time with SP2 as well(the modern setting and mostly hypothetical battles weren't as compelling). SP3 was just too tedious as the scale was too big and cluttered for the engine, making it a chore to take turns.

I never tried Firefight, but since you directed me to it, I gave it a go and I'm impressed. Like a streamlined and more intense CC, with less direct control, but the way the units react automatically to threats makes it seem more realistic. Thanks for the up!

 

[Korgan]

I'd also recommend WinSPMBT, it also feels very thorough and realistic, although armor tactics are more restricted in the modern era and aircraft just flattens everything but heavy SAM, so there's less variety. Still quite entertaining. A shame there's no option for anachronistic battles, Somalia vs Kwa is as close as you get.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Try out Armored Brigade. It's a real time simulation inspired by Steel Panthers.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Congrats Korgan, now you'll never lack time-sink games to play. Try SP-WAW too.

 

[Trash]

It's been awhile (well, a very long time) since I last played any of the Steel Panther games and I'm willing to give it another go. Any recommendation on what version to get? Seems there's way more Steel Panther stuff out there than I can remember from back then.

Oh, and check my firefight review on Tacticular Cancer.

http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=65

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

It's been awhile (well, a very long time) since I last played any of the Steel Panther games and I'm willing to give it another go. Any recommendation on what version to get? Seems there's way more Steel Panther stuff out there than I can remember from back then.

Oh, and check my firefight review on Tacticular Cancer.

http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=65

This: http://linetap.com/www/drg/SPCamo-2.htm

And this: http://www.steelpanthersonline.com/main.asp

And the original with the cd music and videos. Actually, does anyone know where a working 'full' copy of the original steel panthers is?

Nice review of Firefight. I have played that game for years, and it is constantly being updated. I recommend some of the other games in O'Connors pack too, so might as well buy the lot. http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/

 

[Trash]

Thanks! I tried WinSPWW2 but in fullscreen the menus turn into one big glitched mess. Looks fine in windowed but that's kinda hard to play in with such big maps. Tried all sorts of forums and searched google but apart from a very uninformative topic about vista users having the same problem I found nothing.

I've got windows 7 with a nvidia 8800gt card. Anyone got an idea on how to fix this or has seen this before?

EDIT: Got it! Load with winspww2.exe instead of the desktop icon. Put that one in windows 95 compatibility mode and tune down colours to 16 bit. Only then does it work but it does work good. Man, it's been awhile since a game gave me such a hard time to get it to run.

EDIT2: Fuck me. Started fine twice and then turned back into a glitched mess. Back to windowed mode it is.

EDIT3: Got it. Missed a thread on the shrapnell forums. Apparantly explorer.exe does not work well with the game so someone made a small cmd file which kills of explorer and runs the game. Works flawlessly. If someone does use it, be mindfull to edit the cmd file (wordpad works) to make sure that it uses the correct Steel Panthers exe.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45462

 

[Korgan]

And by the way, getting KVs in '41 is as much of a legal cheat as in Close Combat (and real life). The Germans won't have *anything* mobile that could deal with them. T-34s are pretty killy too, the only weakness the Russians have is morale. If playing as Germans, bring 88s and infantry.

 

[Trash]

So far even the tutorial beats my ass. :D

 

[MetalCraze]

How hard is it to get in into WinSPMBT?

Does one need to suffer through the torture of 10s of options on the overloaded interface that puts a fear into the heart of even the most hardcore or is there a moderately adequate tutorial?

 

[Trash]

Well, if it is the same as WinSPWW2 than It's pretty easy to get into really. Though it does help to print out the tutorial and play through it with the instructions at hand. If you could get into Combat Mission than this is a no brainer for you.

Anyway, turns can take awhile but the game is as rewarding as I remember it. What's best is the absolute humongous amount of scenarios at hand together with an editor and quite a few campaigns (not to mention a random campaign option).

Really, I love the Squad Battle games but they ain't got shit on a game with so many options. If only they had a scenario and map editor like this one...

 

[MetalCraze]

If you could get into Combat Mission than this is a no brainer for you.

Good

 

[thesheeep]

I finally got into Steel Panties

FTFY.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Skyway, with SPMBT, as with any SP really, the biggest hurdle is your knowledge. Since pretty much every piece of equipment from 1920s to 2020 is modelled (depending on game), many have found the selection of units for random battles and campaigns to be the quite daunting - as more expensive isn't always the best choice.

As to the UI, it's pretty self-explanatory - most useful shortcuts are N for next unit, P for previous, T for selecting target and F for firing. Just those four speed up your turns. Artillery can be devastating, if used properly but getting the hang of it can be bit tough.

Too bad that the AI still cannot utilize the dust clouds that units kick up in desert maps Best memories of a hot-seat game, use few trucks to kick up a big-ass dust cloud in the south portion of the map, while moving your tanks slowly on the north portion - man, that was sweet :D

 

[poocolator]

WinSPMBT and SPWW2-- the games where I discovered just how fucking important suppressive fire ('x') really is.

I still play WinSPMBT occasionally, after all these years, whenever I need a military fix.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Getting used to the mechanics took some time, but now I'm loving both WinSPMBT and SPWW2. Started a random historical campaign in the latter and it's amazing how incredibly real and natural it feels. You can precisely recreate a Red Army Special Battalion, or a similar task force, from structure to tactics, just by learning to play and broadly following real military writing. There's, say, a heavy infantry company, a recon company, varied armor, SP guns and two infantry support detachments; over a few battles you'll make the same mistakes historical commanders made, and finally learn to use combined arms with a personal approach, on any scale, in any terrain.

I always had trouble getting into this game due to the AI's tactics being so unlike what a human would do.

It felt like everything was just moving towards you as fast as possible instead of attempting to reach their optimal ranges.

A wave of empty APCs, a wave or three of tanks, and then finally the dismounted infantry walking towards you across open fields.

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[poocolator]

Am I doing something wrong?

The AI is just quirky when playing a custom map. The hand-made scenarios are usually better.

Ideally, though, the AI should deploy a smokescreen and keep those APC's alongside the infantry for supporting fire. That would be a bitch to put down.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Getting used to the mechanics took some time, but now I'm loving both WinSPMBT and SPWW2. Started a random historical campaign in the latter and it's amazing how incredibly real and natural it feels. You can precisely recreate a Red Army Special Battalion, or a similar task force, from structure to tactics, just by learning to play and broadly following real military writing. There's, say, a heavy infantry company, a recon company, varied armor, SP guns and two infantry support detachments; over a few battles you'll make the same mistakes historical commanders made, and finally learn to use combined arms with a personal approach, on any scale, in any terrain.

I always had trouble getting into this game due to the AI's tactics being so unlike what a human would do.

It felt like everything was just moving towards you as fast as possible instead of attempting to reach their optimal ranges.

A wave of empty APCs, a wave or three of tanks, and then finally the dismounted infantry walking towards you across open fields.

Am I doing something wrong?

Yes, you're playing Steel Panthers against the AI.