What part about JTCS do you like best

Chuck10mtn · 10-23-2008, 01:44 PM,

Hi All,
After playing some games and playing a few different people I was wondering what part about the game brings people back to the computer screen. As people who have played me know I'm a have fun type of guy. I enjoy the little poking back and forth that goes on between my opponent and me. Never knowing what I'm going to read about how my game is degressing quickly.
As the game and game play goes I enjoy how much better the graphics look. Thanks to Jason and the crew for making my losses look so much better. And lastly but not by any means least is all the hard work that designers put into making more scenarios to which the game would become boring quick, without all their hard work.

Chuck

Kool Kat · (This post was last modified: 10-23-2008, 11:47 PM by Kool Kat.)

I enjoy the experience of playing an "electronic" version of the old AH Panzerblitz / Panzer Leader board games. :)

I started my wargaming hobby way back when I was a teen with AH's War at Sea game. That was in the days when you manually wrote down your movement and attack orders. You then had to either consult the stock listings or use randomly generated "combat" number tables to resolve combat! A typical "snail mail" game could take months to complete! Eek

Then Talon Soft released their series and I was in heaven! Big Grin

No more pushing around cardboard counters or worrying about kids, wife, or pets "upsetting" your battlegrounds! Electronic games could be completed in days, instead of weeks or months. Now, with the Matrix CS series, Jason and company took the original Talon Soft versions and brought the CS series to a new level!

Finally, what brings me back to CS is the great historical emphasis (units, nationalities, scenarios, etc.) and playability of this game system. CS is easy to learn, but difficult to master! :cool: I'm also an amateur historian and enjoy reading / studying about the WWII period.

Pip Roberts · 10-27-2008, 05:57 AM,

Wow Mike!! An old Panzer Blitz player!! I still have 6 of the old cardboard counters stuck on my desk in memory of that great game before we had the wonders of computers and the best of them all (including the latest Strategy games) the Matrix version of Campaign series.
I have been playing CS since 1998 (sorry I missed it in 1997) and just love it.I play with selected mates who are about my standard and more interested in the tactics and learning the difficult art of War than winning or losing. I even play the AI to learn about selected classic battles and love our during and after game discussions.
I am still playing the CS and the original Matrix release but as I will soon go onto broadband I am raelly looking forward to the 1.04 upgrade and the major contributions form Jason and his mates.
I like the sound of you as you may even share my heretical philosophy

Kool Kat · 10-28-2008, 03:40 AM,

Pip Roberts Wrote:Wow Mike!! An old Panzer Blitz player!! I still have 6 of the old cardboard counters stuck on my desk in memory of that great game before we had the wonders of computers and the best of them all (including the latest Strategy games) the Matrix version of Campaign series.

Hi Pip! :)

I actually still have three (3) Panzerblitz boxed games (complete with counters, boards and rules folder) in their original book shelf-style packaging! Eek

Why 3 you may ask? Because in my earlier wargaming years, I had simultaneous PBM (snail mail) games underway... and I did not want to break down and have to set-up the game boards and counters each turn. I used a game cabinet and stored each "battle" on a separate bulletin cork board. These bulletin boards had frames that allowed the Panzerblitz #1, #2, and #3 boards to lay flat and kept them from moving / sliding out of position. I could stack 3 bulletin board battles (BBB's) without upsetting the unit counter stacks! Big Grin

Ah, the "good" old days! Glad these days are behind me now! :whis:

schnurbart · 11-01-2008, 05:22 AM,

I like the Chrome additions best. Also features that make the larger game format more dynamic such as bridging teams etc.

Reddog · 11-01-2008, 08:40 AM,

That sure brings back great memories reading the posts from Mike and Pip. Mike you had mentioned the game "War At Sea", was that the one with the real large map with Midway positioned somewhere near the middle? That was a great game playing head-to-head with another wargame fanatic but trying to keep all the board pieces undisturbed during the week. Then restarting the battle where we left off and play for about 30 hours. We would shift between Squad Leader and the Pacific War while waiting for my opponent to move in one battle while moving my troops in the other game ... those were the days for sure.

I stumbled across the CS game back in 1999 and thought I had died and gone to heaven to see a computer game that was so close to Squad Leader. Once I started playing CS I've never looked back and play as often as possible. The new 1.04 has some good "eye candy" and find it great not having to use a disk to play the game. I burned out a disc drive every two years just playing games.

schnurbart · 11-01-2008, 02:32 PM,

Reddog Wrote:That sure brings back great memories reading the posts from Mike and Pip. Mike you had mentioned the game "War At Sea", was that the one with the real large map with Midway positioned somewhere near the middle? That was a great game playing head-to-head with another wargame fanatic but trying to keep all the board pieces undisturbed during the week. Then restarting the battle where we left off and play for about 30 hours. We would shift between Squad Leader and the Pacific War while waiting for my opponent to move in one battle while moving my troops in the other game ... those were the days for sure.

I stumbled across the CS game back in 1999 and thought I had died and gone to heaven to see a computer game that was so close to Squad Leader. Once I started playing CS I've never looked back and play as often as possible. The new 1.04 has some good "eye candy" and find it great not having to use a disk to play the game. I burned out a disc drive every two years just playing games.

yeah i really like CS. Its like Panzerblitz on good coffee with a smattering of squad leader..ie the disrupted movement rules and morale checks

Kool Kat · (This post was last modified: 11-02-2008, 01:40 AM by Kool Kat.)

Reddog Wrote:That sure brings back great memories reading the posts from Mike and Pip. Mike you had mentioned the game "War At Sea", was that the one with the real large map with Midway positioned somewhere near the middle? That was a great game playing head-to-head with another wargame fanatic but trying to keep all the board pieces undisturbed during the week.

My continued trip down "memory lane"... :cool:

Red Dog reminds me of another funny (fond?) experience I had with wargames. It was back in my college days and I was playing a buddy of mine a SPI game on one of those infamous paper mapboards. Remember how the folded map creases always seemed to overlay an important map objective and you could never get your counter stack to sit correctly? :chin: Anyway, it was a hot day and we had the board set-up on a desk near an open window. My roommate opened our dorm door and a wonderful cross breeze begain blowing through the stuffy room. This "wonderful" breeze also got up under the paper mapboard and lifted it up. For several seconds, the mapboard with counters hovered a few inches off the desk surface - like a magic flying carpet! Eek

Then the counters shifted and slid, causing our entire campaign to be unceremoniously dumped into a confused heap back on the desk! Eek

This incident necessitated a halt to our hostilities... so we called a truce and ordered pizza!

Funny stuff! Big Grin

RedDevil · 11-02-2008, 11:03 AM,

Ah.. I do remember the grand campaign game of Squad leader I had set up using all the maps from the SL game and 3 add ons on my father's dining room table for 6 weeks back when I was on summer vacation from school, and using every single unit counter in the game. Reinforcements came in on map edges determined by dice rolls, and consisted of using the deck of cards and the chart in the SL rule book, & if you didn't have any dead units to cover the reups, you lost em... you got so many cards from the deck based on objectives held, It was very well thought out, but it got nasty when your reups appeared smack in the middle of an armored column moving up to engage and you made a dash to try and get to friendly lines before our supply rules limited your actions and cost you heavily in attrition losses.

It was rough for the Germans early on, all that allied armor was simply overwhelming, but once they got into the PAK and ENG defense belt it was very messy for them. Game got called on account of sheer casualties and well we just got tired of it and went on to play some Gettysburg and Bismarck instead.

I have yet to find someone in my area who plays SL in 20+ years :(

As for JTCS, I love it all, Even if it isn't perfect :)

Kool Kat · (This post was last modified: 11-02-2008, 09:32 PM by Kool Kat.)

RedDevil Wrote:I have yet to find someone in my area who plays SL (Squad Leader) in 20+ years :(

I "almost" purchased SL when Avalon Hill originally published it in 1977. SL was an infantry tactical level game system. It represented a huge evolution and leap in rule complexity from the platoon / company level combat of the Panzerblitz / Panzer Leader games.

I played a few introduction SL games and contemplated purchasing it many times. But, I always came back to my worn and tattered copies of Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader. Then, in 1985, when AH produced Advanced Squad Leader (ASL), making many of the original SL game components (counters, rules, etc.) obsolete and requiring players to digest a huge rules folder, I gave up on both the SL and ASL game systems.