France 14

[Mr Grumpy]

I must say the game notes supplied are some of the most detailed I've ever seen. They are FANTASTIC. Great job!

Again an excellent aspect to this title, the notes really bring you "up to speed" on the background to the conflict, the opposing forces and the reasons for the design decisions that have been made.

[miller41]

Have been playing this since it arrived (the smaller scenarios) and it is a great game. Notice that units seem to recover fatigue faster in this game than others, is that the way it is designed. I have had units recover enough if they stay out of the line several turns to become combat effective again, which is good considering the beating men take in this game.

[Volcano Man]

Have been playing this since it arrived (the smaller scenarios) and it is a great game. Notice that units seem to recover fatigue faster in this game than others, is that the way it is designed. I have had units recover enough if they stay out of the line several turns to become combat effective again, which is good considering the beating men take in this game.

Yes, you are correct. Fatigue recovery is a little faster (if I recall), but not much different but still a little helpful. The difference is with replacements, which the OOB uses extensively planned out replacement levels for all units, so if you keep your units well supplied and in good command and good order then they will recover some good strength.

If they are scattered all over the place and in bad command and poor supply then they will recover their strength slowly. Another good reason to keep those units nice and tight and in good order and a good incentive to rest periodically too.

[Dog Soldier]

Another good reason to keep those units nice and tight and in good order and a good incentive to rest periodically too.

Sound military thinking there. Good to see the game rewards / punishes for this.

BTW Ed, did you approach the issue with the PzC engine of a player stacking units from different formations in the same hex to bring massive artillery support to bear in a small area? Since artillery in WW1 was so decisive in breaking up attacks, should the seams where two formations meet be the strongest in artillery support? I know this is a tough one to solve in a game simulation. Just wondering where your thoughts went on this.

Dog Soldier

[Volcano Man]

BTW Ed, did you approach the issue with the PzC engine of a player stacking units from different formations in the same hex to bring massive artillery support to bear in a small area? Since artillery in WW1 was so decisive in breaking up attacks, should the seams where two formations meet be the strongest in artillery support? I know this is a tough one to solve in a game simulation. Just wondering where your thoughts went on this.

Hmm, well, in FWWC the boundaries between two units can indeed be weak, because brigade HQ ranges are pretty small, and if a unit is outside of their parent HQ radius then they suffer a drop in quality. This influences units to be closer together and discourages mixing, unless two brigades are right on top of each other in which case they themselves become prime artillery targets. Not to mention, two close brigades mixed together make for a unit that is easier to swing around its flanks.

The alternative on their part is to spread out and mix, which results in a lot of detached units from the Bde HQ, and of course a lot of low quality units holding the line. Other than that though, not much was specifically done to address that, although the way the brigade HQs in the game are devised kind of discourages most of the worst mixing of units that we are familiar with.

[Mr Grumpy]

To be honest it had never struck me that the amount of indirect arty available was significantly more than in many of the PzC titles i have played and so as Ed said the fact you have to keep your units within the very limited command radius (or suffer the consequences which are more severe than in PzC) tend to make this less of an issue.

As an example i am playing the Arras scenario against Rick i don't have a single piece of indirect arty!) :eek1:

Maybe in titles where the armies have settled down into more static warfare this might be an issue again? :chin:

[Lowlander]

l'll dive in at the deep end as I started a Campaign straight out of the box.

Have only flicked thro the game notes but do we have a campaign for human V AI, used to play only PBEM but cannot commit to these at this time.

The next two points are probably down to my age, I aint gett'in any younger.

Because of the change in moving artillery and MG units around, when they end up in a hex with a Infantry unit, next move I sometimes inadvertently click and put my Infantry Bn into T-Mode instead of deploying my artillery or MG units.
So be very very careful, I never had this problem before.

Honestly I could not grasp the lie of the land with the new 2D graphics, so I did a retrofit with the graphics from a earlier title, now back in my comfort zone.
However I find this time period plays really well in 3D mode for battlefield movement and firing, I still use 2D for marches and plotting artillery etc.

Finally I found the transition to this game was very smooth, the new changes to gameplay slot in really well, like the new sounds and would rate this the best title released by HPS, a great piece of kit and would highly recommend this to everyone, well done guys.

[Mr Grumpy]

Because of the change in moving artillery and MG units around, when they end up in a hex with a Infantry unit, next move I sometimes inadvertently click and put my Infantry Bn into T-Mode instead of deploying my artillery or MG units.
So be very very careful, I never had this problem before.

Well i never found this an issue personally, but you make a very good point that there are now many, many more units in T mode than you would ever find in a PzC game.

Honestly I could not grasp the lie of the land with the new 2D graphics, so I did a retrofit with the graphics from a earlier title, now back in my comfort zone.
However I find this time period plays really well in 3D mode for battlefield movement and firing, I still use 2D for marches and plotting artillery etc.

I always play in 2D and find the "show contours" feature is good enough for me to "see" the lie of the land, glad you sorted this out so you were happy again.

Finally I found the transition to this game was very smooth, the new changes to gameplay slot in really well, like the new sounds and would rate this the best title released by HPS, a great piece of kit and would highly recommend this to everyone, well done guys.

I am very happy to read that, Ed and the testing team have worked hard to try to make this series as user friendly as possible, i hope my article will highlight the most important changes because although this looks like a PzC title it really plays different and we really hope that players will have the patience to learn a new style of playing to suit a new era of warfare.

[Ricky B]

Regarding intermixing units and calling artillery, remember that IF must be plotted anyway - so if there is more IF artillery later on, intermixing units won't really matter still as spotters have NO impact on IF plots. IF can be plotted on any hex in range - so I guess the intermixing benefit would come from mixing up IF artillery from various units, but as Ed stated, then command ranges impact that and the artillery will quickly become unavailable.

So to summarize that, intermixing provides no benefit that I can think of, outside of the historical "throw a unit into the line" to keep it intact.

Rick

[FM WarB]

I've learned to be careful with the T-Mode button being right next to the end turn button.
I have not been able to decifer the oob file to determine what the replacement rates are.