- Joined
- Nov 22, 2020
- Messages
- 2,600
Alrighty m8s, got little over 10 hours in the game now – here are my findings:
The storyfag elements in the game are excellent and it is obvious that the dev did some research and thinking about the late 1980s situation in Europe. Most of the games and other media dealing with the late Cold War period make a mistake of treating Warsaw Pact as a monolithic entity where everyone is ready to cross the West German border when the USSR says the word. I guess that anyone who had father/uncle/grandfather in any of the Pact armies at the time will know that this is not what the situation was actually like. Morale was low, especially in the “frontline” states, many people were more or less open about how they would refuse to fight or outright defect the first chance they got if the things got hot. The game shows this very well, with both East Germany and Poland going into full revolt at the first sign of trouble, while the soviet troops have to fight their alleged allies before they even get to see the first Bundeswehr uniform.
I wont spoil much from the story, but the initial conflict starts with upraising in the East Germany where you fight on the “loyalist” side against the pro-democratic rebels. As you assault the rebel capital close to the West German Border, East German an soviet troops set up heavy radio jammers in the area to prevent the rebels from calling for help – since the rebels operate the same radio systems as you do, your troops also become cut off from communication with HQ. As you mop up the rebels, somebody fires several ballistic missiles into the area, hitting a railway station where a train loaded with chemicals was parked at the time. The huge chlorin cloud covers the area, forcing a brief break in the fighting as both sides put on their CBRN gear, the rebels are eventually overrun, but there is massive chaos, comms are down and lots of civilians are dieing due to gas.
Then the perspective changes over to NATO, Bundeswehr was already at high readiness due to the fighting on the other side of the border, but when the gas cloud moves to FRG territory and wreaks havoc there, an elite panzer regiment is sent over the border (now basically unguarded and overflowing with refugees) to find out wtf is happening an figure out whether this is a chemical attack or a mere accident. You lead the assault that takes out the troops you commanded in the first operation, lift the jamming an verify that the chlorin comes from a destroyed railway station. At that time however, you get reports that East German troops are responding to the raid by crossing the border elsewhere and the events quickly start to spiral out of control…
The story is unveiled through short reports you receive in between missions, its done very well and really adds to the atmosphere (as the messages portray the increasing chaos on both sides, with refugees clogging up the roads and fucking up the logistics, military units being confused due to jamming etc). Really nice work in this area, the story had me hooked immediately and I couldnt wait to find out more. Not something that happens in RTS games often, let alone in a Wargame-like. It’s a real pity there aren’t cohesive campaigns though – I understand that the dev probably had to work with very limited means and this is the best he could do, but a longer campaign for either side with some named characters and cutscenes (hell, maybe even some branching) would be absolutely perfect for this type of a game.
As it is, the game does tell the story cohesively, making sure you get full information from both sides. Plus of course you get to master both sides as well as a result – this would make more sense in an MP game where SP content is there primarily to provide basic training for MP however. I wish the other approach was taken, but oh well.
The switching perspective also means that you play a different regiment every time. This imo leads to the very nice management layer being a bit underused as you start from scratch with every operation – being able to build up a single regiment over a longer campaign would have been a blast. As it is, you on the other hand get to play with a great variety of units that require different playstyle, so there is plenty going in favor of this approach too.
Gameplay-wise there aren’t many changes since the demo, so I will not repeat myself (see the longer post on previous pages, it will give you all the information you need) here. A bigger change is that the mech inf units are now equipped with MANPADs, so they are fairly good at defending against helicopters. Other than that the important elements are managing your supplies during missions (you have logistics units that can resupply units in the field, otherwise you have to retreat them to resupply off map), managing artillery fire (arty on arty duels are a huge part of the game and AI is fairly good at them so you need to pay attention) and air defense (the MANPADs for infantry make this a bit easier, but airplanes and helis are still mortal danger to most units, dedicated AA units are very rare, so figuring out a good placement for them is key).
I have to give special mention to the way defense against airplanes is handled in the game, as I find the system really good. The airplanes can be suppressed by AA fire, which makes them either ineffective (as the maneuver to avoid fire and cant really aim) or sometimes even makes them break off completely. This means that AA units don’t need to kill to be effective, they merely need to be in position to fire at the enemy planes before they can engage. Of course the planes are so fast that you cant relocate when they show up – figuring out a good position for your AA assets is therefore vital as is making sure that your troops are within the AA coverage.
AI is pretty decent – it flanks, seeks weak areas in your line, tries to take out your arty and generally doesn’t give me reasons to complain.
Finally – yeah, the game is gamey to considerable extend, there is a CoH style retreat function, units move fairly fast etc. If you want a highly realistic experience, go play Armored Brigade. Regiments is a storyfag take on Wargame franchise with management/RPG elements.
In any case, I really like the game. At this rate I would say that the full SP experience (as far as operations go) could easily be at about 30 hours, plus then you have the skirmish mode. Its really impressive that one dude working out of his garage was able to pull of something like this. I just hope that the game does well enough to let him continue and get some team together too – there is a huge potential here still waiting to be unlocked with more funds and labor force. The world sure does need more games like this.
The storyfag elements in the game are excellent and it is obvious that the dev did some research and thinking about the late 1980s situation in Europe. Most of the games and other media dealing with the late Cold War period make a mistake of treating Warsaw Pact as a monolithic entity where everyone is ready to cross the West German border when the USSR says the word. I guess that anyone who had father/uncle/grandfather in any of the Pact armies at the time will know that this is not what the situation was actually like. Morale was low, especially in the “frontline” states, many people were more or less open about how they would refuse to fight or outright defect the first chance they got if the things got hot. The game shows this very well, with both East Germany and Poland going into full revolt at the first sign of trouble, while the soviet troops have to fight their alleged allies before they even get to see the first Bundeswehr uniform.
I wont spoil much from the story, but the initial conflict starts with upraising in the East Germany where you fight on the “loyalist” side against the pro-democratic rebels. As you assault the rebel capital close to the West German Border, East German an soviet troops set up heavy radio jammers in the area to prevent the rebels from calling for help – since the rebels operate the same radio systems as you do, your troops also become cut off from communication with HQ. As you mop up the rebels, somebody fires several ballistic missiles into the area, hitting a railway station where a train loaded with chemicals was parked at the time. The huge chlorin cloud covers the area, forcing a brief break in the fighting as both sides put on their CBRN gear, the rebels are eventually overrun, but there is massive chaos, comms are down and lots of civilians are dieing due to gas.
Then the perspective changes over to NATO, Bundeswehr was already at high readiness due to the fighting on the other side of the border, but when the gas cloud moves to FRG territory and wreaks havoc there, an elite panzer regiment is sent over the border (now basically unguarded and overflowing with refugees) to find out wtf is happening an figure out whether this is a chemical attack or a mere accident. You lead the assault that takes out the troops you commanded in the first operation, lift the jamming an verify that the chlorin comes from a destroyed railway station. At that time however, you get reports that East German troops are responding to the raid by crossing the border elsewhere and the events quickly start to spiral out of control…
The story is unveiled through short reports you receive in between missions, its done very well and really adds to the atmosphere (as the messages portray the increasing chaos on both sides, with refugees clogging up the roads and fucking up the logistics, military units being confused due to jamming etc). Really nice work in this area, the story had me hooked immediately and I couldnt wait to find out more. Not something that happens in RTS games often, let alone in a Wargame-like. It’s a real pity there aren’t cohesive campaigns though – I understand that the dev probably had to work with very limited means and this is the best he could do, but a longer campaign for either side with some named characters and cutscenes (hell, maybe even some branching) would be absolutely perfect for this type of a game.
As it is, the game does tell the story cohesively, making sure you get full information from both sides. Plus of course you get to master both sides as well as a result – this would make more sense in an MP game where SP content is there primarily to provide basic training for MP however. I wish the other approach was taken, but oh well.
The switching perspective also means that you play a different regiment every time. This imo leads to the very nice management layer being a bit underused as you start from scratch with every operation – being able to build up a single regiment over a longer campaign would have been a blast. As it is, you on the other hand get to play with a great variety of units that require different playstyle, so there is plenty going in favor of this approach too.
Gameplay-wise there aren’t many changes since the demo, so I will not repeat myself (see the longer post on previous pages, it will give you all the information you need) here. A bigger change is that the mech inf units are now equipped with MANPADs, so they are fairly good at defending against helicopters. Other than that the important elements are managing your supplies during missions (you have logistics units that can resupply units in the field, otherwise you have to retreat them to resupply off map), managing artillery fire (arty on arty duels are a huge part of the game and AI is fairly good at them so you need to pay attention) and air defense (the MANPADs for infantry make this a bit easier, but airplanes and helis are still mortal danger to most units, dedicated AA units are very rare, so figuring out a good placement for them is key).
I have to give special mention to the way defense against airplanes is handled in the game, as I find the system really good. The airplanes can be suppressed by AA fire, which makes them either ineffective (as the maneuver to avoid fire and cant really aim) or sometimes even makes them break off completely. This means that AA units don’t need to kill to be effective, they merely need to be in position to fire at the enemy planes before they can engage. Of course the planes are so fast that you cant relocate when they show up – figuring out a good position for your AA assets is therefore vital as is making sure that your troops are within the AA coverage.
AI is pretty decent – it flanks, seeks weak areas in your line, tries to take out your arty and generally doesn’t give me reasons to complain.
Finally – yeah, the game is gamey to considerable extend, there is a CoH style retreat function, units move fairly fast etc. If you want a highly realistic experience, go play Armored Brigade. Regiments is a storyfag take on Wargame franchise with management/RPG elements.
In any case, I really like the game. At this rate I would say that the full SP experience (as far as operations go) could easily be at about 30 hours, plus then you have the skirmish mode. Its really impressive that one dude working out of his garage was able to pull of something like this. I just hope that the game does well enough to let him continue and get some team together too – there is a huge potential here still waiting to be unlocked with more funds and labor force. The world sure does need more games like this.
