Cuban Missile Crisis / Carribean Crisis / The Aftermath

[AwesomeButton]

I just noticed this old cult gem is on Steam (although not on GOG, strangely). It was about 2010 when I played it for the first time, and since I had played Blitzkrieg (same engine), I knew what to expect, and enjoyed it a lot. I knew it wasn't as realistic as other "RTS" tactical games, but the beautiful graphics, the way it was taking its alt-history seriously, and something about it being set in the Cold War era really made it "feel" like a realistic experience. Also, I'm a sucker for games where the units speak in their native languages and fuck anyone who doesn't understand them.

My question to ayone who has played this, or Blitzkrieg, or another cult gem - Talvisota Icy Hell (free to download as it seems), is - has anyone ever posted footage or a description of how you are supposed to play these games without feeling like you're doing it "wrong"?

The "tactics" or rather exploits and tricks you have to use to win include lots of savescumming, cheesing the AI's line of sight, playing at an excruciatingly slow game speed, assorted autism like pausing in order to target every tank, etc.

Units need heavy micro in order to not get slaughtered in the matter of seconds when attacking, pathfinding is often unintuitive, and the AI is very much non-existent. Any maneuvering on the AI's part is scripted. With so much micro reqiured and lack of pressure on the AI's part, the player is tempted into controlling only a couple of units at a time, and the game rarely feels like you are actually commanding a battle. Steel Division on the other hand achieves that feeling, but the disappointing aspect is that most of the time you are watching little dots or ugly 2D icons move around the screen.

So what I was wondering is if there is some secret right way to play this game that me and anyone on youtube hasn't discovered. The Cuban Missile Crisis has so many factions, each of which has chapters, each of which is full of possible encounters, that I can't imagine someone made all this, and the tactics are supposed to be so simple and repetitive.

 

[Victor1234]

I just noticed this old cult gem is on Steam (although not on GOG, strangely). It was about 2010 when I played it for the first time, and since I had played Blitzkrieg (same engine), I knew what to expect, and enjoyed it a lot. I knew it wasn't as realistic as other "RTS" tactical games, but the beautiful graphics, the way it was taking its alt-history seriously, and something about it being set in the Cold War era really made it "feel" like a realistic experience. Also, I'm a sucker for games where the units speak in their native languages and fuck anyone who doesn't understand them.

My question to ayone who has played this, or Blitzkrieg, or another cult gem - Talvisota Icy Hell (free to download as it seems), is - has anyone ever posted footage or a description of how you are supposed to play these games without feeling like you're doing it "wrong"?

The "tactics" or rather exploits and tricks you have to use to win include lots of savescumming, cheesing the AI's line of sight, playing at an excruciatingly slow game speed, assorted autism like pausing in order to target every tank, etc.

Units need heavy micro in order to not get slaughtered in the matter of seconds when attacking, pathfinding is often unintuitive, and the AI is very much non-existent. Any maneuvering on the AI's part is scripted. With so much micro reqiured and lack of pressure on the AI's part, the player is tempted into controlling only a couple of units at a time, and the game rarely feels like you are actually commanding a battle. Steel Division on the other hand achieves that feeling, but the disappointing aspect is that most of the time you are watching little dots or ugly 2D icons move around the screen.

So what I was wondering is if there is some secret right way to play this game that me and anyone on youtube hasn't discovered. The Cuban Missile Crisis has so many factions, each of which has chapters, each of which is full of possible encounters, that I can't imagine someone made all this, and the tactics are supposed to be so simple and repetitive.

I haven't played this but did play Blitzkrieg (and Sudden Strike) quite a lot back in the day. It really is so detailed yet so simple and repetitive, so don't feel bad. Generally you micro a few tanks at a time, use infantry in small groups as expendable scouts and if you have artillery, use them to whack what the infantry reveal before they die quickly.

From the steam discussion for this game for example, it appears the devs added the PT-76 amphibious tank in all loving detail but realized too late that on this engine, it's complicated to make tanks be able to cross rivers, so it's just not possible in the game (negating the only real advantage using this tank would bring...).

 

[Beastro]

The "tactics" or rather exploits and tricks you have to use to win include lots of savescumming, cheesing the AI's line of sight, playing at an excruciatingly slow game speed, assorted autism like pausing in order to target every tank, etc.

This isn't new. It was that way with Blitzkrieg 1 where the best way to have a decent battle was to crawl your scout along to within LOS of the AI artillery and then knock it out before you could then relax and have some sort of battle until casualties forced you to go back to scout/artillery scumming.

For all of it's faults and dumbing down, Blitzkrieg 2s system of calling in reinforcements allowed you to be less risk adverse.

 

[jebsmoker]

just play stalingrad instead if you've finished blitzkrieg 1 and you want more of the blitzkrieg engine

cuban missile crisis has an interesting premise, but it squanders it by having a series of half-baked design choices - such as the half-assed total war inspired world map that has terrible balance for the gameplay