Wargame: European Escalation

Dr. Strangelove

Banned
This game may or may not be an experiment to test MacCaulay's resistance to espontaneous orgasms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaIe9T_VDWc

So it is an AH RTS with wargame elements like chains of supply, ammo count, realistically modeled vehicles and all that, set in an hypothetical WWIII in the early 80's. There are 8 playable nations: The US, the Soviet Union, France, UK, both Germanies, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

It is from the RUSE guys, which was a similar concept set in WWII with a less realistic approach. I think RUSE was a very original and innovative idea in the stale RTS world with a flawed execution, and the developers seem to have thought the same, so they ditched their publishers Ubisoft and have gone in a more hardcore and realistic direction (which must be a first in Videogame history). I am looking forward to play it when I finish my current CK2 binge.

More videos and images: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhIBF_jyLPY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq0rpLxhnlc&feature=relmfu

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Martin23230

Looking though the plot it is an interesting variation on the Cold War going hot: shooting in West Berlin, things escalate etc... However it is NATO that go on the offensive into East Germany, and by the time the Warsaw Pact is mobilised to fight (i.e. the start of the game) almost all of the GDR is under NATO control, most of the fighting seems to take place on Eastern soil. I just found that interesting compared to most WWIII settings where, whatever the cause, it is usually the Pact that get the initiative and invade West Germany...

Also, the world map in the background, NATO-occupied East Germany is clearly visible.
 
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Kome

Kome

Game looks epic.

Never played RUSE. Too bad i absolutely suck at RTS games tho, so despite how epic this game is i'll only be getting it when its cheap.

edit: And it turns out my computer cant even run it. FUCK! :(
 
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Life In Black

Martin23230 said:
Looking though the plot it is an interesting variation on the Cold War going hot: shooting in West Berlin, things escalate etc... However it is NATO that go on the offensive into East Germany, and by the time the Warsaw Pact is mobilised to fight (i.e. the start of the game) almost all of the GDR is under NATO control, most of the fighting seems to take place on Eastern soil. I just found that interesting compared to most WWIII settings where, whatever the cause, it is usually the Pact that get the initiative and invade West Germany...

Also, the world map in the background, NATO-occupied East Germany is clearly visible.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the setting for the first Mercenaries game, in which the Allied forces invade North Korea instead of the other way around.
 

Dr. Strangelove

Banned
Kome said:
Game looks epic.

Never played RUSE. Too bad i absolutely suck at RTS games tho, so despite how epic this game is i'll only be getting it when its cheap.

edit: And it turns out my computer cant even run it. FUCK! :(
Click to expand...

In the end RUSE was flawed because it had to run in consoles: the pace was frantic and you could never enjoy the graphics because you would spend all of your time in top-down view ordering big unit stacks around. It was, however, incredibly original. I like that the developers took the hint and went in a more hardcore direction because the original was a very bizarre combination of hardcore wargaming and casual RTS.

From what I've read, people are loving the MP beta, and it is a very tactical and slow paced game.
 

Dave Howery

Martin23230 said:
Looking though the plot it is an interesting variation on the Cold War going hot: shooting in West Berlin, things escalate etc... However it is NATO that go on the offensive into East Germany, and by the time the Warsaw Pact is mobilised to fight (i.e. the start of the game) almost all of the GDR is under NATO control, most of the fighting seems to take place on Eastern soil.
Click to expand...

well, that's different. You have to wonder just how successful NATO would have been invading the GDR... you always picture NATO as being totally geared around defense against giant Russian armies, not attacking first...
 
joea64

joea64

I just bought and downloaded this game as a birthday treat for myself :D (I got it from Amazon, where it's $35.99 US, so you'll save some money off the $39.99 list). Just posted a review on Amazon. Long story short, I love this game already though I've only played the first scenario.

It seems to me that the scenario that's been mentioned in this thread (where NATO goes on the offensive into the DDR) is only one of several; the scenario I test-played tonight is a border clash in December 1975 between the Bundeswehr and the NVA, based on the Werner Weinhold incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Weinhold); the AH twist is that negotiations between the West and East Germans break down, and the DDR launches a cross-border raid to teach Bonn a lesson. This is the first scenario in a campaign, so I'm certain the war is going to escalate drastically from there. There seem to be four campaigns in "Solo" mode at this time; the second one is probably the one where East Germany has been overrun by NATO.

The basic game mechanic is pretty simple; you select your unit by left-clicking, then right-click to tell it where to move, and when you see an enemy unit, left-click on it and your units within range will fire on it. There's a LOT more to the game than just that, of course - I'm still figuring out how to use logistics units. I need to find and read the manual - having some difficulty at the moment locating the directory where the game has been installed to though I know where the install files downloaded to.

I don't know if the game includes any modding tools, but if it doesn't, I hope some will be made available soon. Think of all the scenarios that could be made...!

(For the record, I'm running it on my new desktop with AMD FX-4100 quad-core CPU, 8GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium SP 1, and Radeon HD 6670. Very smooth loading and running so far.)

EDIT: I just found the manual. It's available via the Steam site.
 
joea64

joea64

The second scenario is tougher than I expected. I think I got lulled by my success in finishing the first scenario. :p In this one, your Bundeswehr unit is detailed to relieve and assist hard-pressed BAOR forces holding a critical highway junction near Hannover. I started the scenario using only my original on-map forces (not taking advantage of the reinforcements available - yeah, stupid :rolleyes:) and have gotten creamed both times so far I've attempted it. Lesson learned. One had better NOT go in just expecting to shove units around like in Civilization.
 

Devilmaypoop

Bumping for epicness. Been playing this game for a few days online with my friends, and I have to say, this is propably one of the best games I have ever played. It's incredibly fun to play 3v3 or 4v4 with friends.
 

Questerr

I wonder how much the AI manages the more tedious details in combat. One of my biggest pet peaves with WiC was having to manually tell my units to fire their special weapons. I hope that Bradley's and the like will at least have good enough AI to automatically fire their TOWs when tanks come around.
 

Devilmaypoop

Questerr said:
I wonder how much the AI manages the more tedious details in combat. One of my biggest pet peaves with WiC was having to manually tell my units to fire their special weapons. I hope that Bradley's and the like will at least have good enough AI to automatically fire their TOWs when tanks come around.
Click to expand...

They know when to fire :) The game is pretty much perfect, except for a few kinks, like crashing. But that's mostly fixed, havn't crashed today at all.
 

solidpontus

Anyone playing this game?

Currently stuck at "1914 again...", damn this mission is hard! :)

I like the game and it has some interesting scenarios. Something that bothered me though, was the "Able Archer"-synopsis: NATO conducts one of it´s largest military exercises ever, the Soviets react with a pre-emptive strike, and NATO´s forces are just swept away...!?

You would think that military forces on exercise would stand more of a chance than that. Or am I wrong?
 
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