PorkaMorka
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 5,090
Warhammer Final Liberation had a really nice scale, which made it much easier for me to get into it than "hardcore" war games.
You got to command a ton of units, yet everything was still tracked down to the individual man (albiet squads were only 5 guys (or something) instead of a more conventional 10), which made battles more exciting, compared to games where you shoot at a unit and kill somebody, but the unit just gets -1 substracted from it's number of men stat. It was really satisfying to reduce that mob of orcs to little splats.
And the maps were nice and big, yet everything was clearly visible, without excessive scrolling around. Compare this to steel panthers main battle tank where you're either squinting at a tiny speck (mostly you can just see the flags if you zoom out) or scrolling 3 screens from your position to the enemy.
I really have trouble developing a plan when I can't see the enemy without zooming out so far I can't see the terrain, and vice versa. Huge problem with the steel panthers series.
Speaking of terrain, it was a lot more obvious and visible, albiet more simple, compared to both steel panthers and combat mission. There is a lot to be said for the ability to determine line of sight at a glance, rather than having to either zoom in in combat mission or try to figure out elevations in steel panthers.
It's not really me being a graphic whore, since final liberations graphics while charming were very blobby. It's just the interface made it so much more playable than wargames that neglect the interface, and the fact that things are represented graphically (using blobs) and easily seen, rather than abstracted in a way that makes things a little dry.
Any ideas for similar games?
I'd really love to be able to play steel panthers, but jesus, the zooming thing makes it completely unplayable for me, in the big maps you can often end up having your force spread over 50+ screens and the enemy 5+ screens away, it's incredibly difficult to form a plan when you can't see your dudes in relation to each other easily.
The terrain is also a hugely important factor, but by no means obvious at a glance, you will often end up without line of site to an area that looks clear unless you manually check each unit's loss.
You got to command a ton of units, yet everything was still tracked down to the individual man (albiet squads were only 5 guys (or something) instead of a more conventional 10), which made battles more exciting, compared to games where you shoot at a unit and kill somebody, but the unit just gets -1 substracted from it's number of men stat. It was really satisfying to reduce that mob of orcs to little splats.
And the maps were nice and big, yet everything was clearly visible, without excessive scrolling around. Compare this to steel panthers main battle tank where you're either squinting at a tiny speck (mostly you can just see the flags if you zoom out) or scrolling 3 screens from your position to the enemy.
I really have trouble developing a plan when I can't see the enemy without zooming out so far I can't see the terrain, and vice versa. Huge problem with the steel panthers series.
Speaking of terrain, it was a lot more obvious and visible, albiet more simple, compared to both steel panthers and combat mission. There is a lot to be said for the ability to determine line of sight at a glance, rather than having to either zoom in in combat mission or try to figure out elevations in steel panthers.
It's not really me being a graphic whore, since final liberations graphics while charming were very blobby. It's just the interface made it so much more playable than wargames that neglect the interface, and the fact that things are represented graphically (using blobs) and easily seen, rather than abstracted in a way that makes things a little dry.
Any ideas for similar games?
I'd really love to be able to play steel panthers, but jesus, the zooming thing makes it completely unplayable for me, in the big maps you can often end up having your force spread over 50+ screens and the enemy 5+ screens away, it's incredibly difficult to form a plan when you can't see your dudes in relation to each other easily.
The terrain is also a hugely important factor, but by no means obvious at a glance, you will often end up without line of site to an area that looks clear unless you manually check each unit's loss.
