Someone is playing around with the manual. I guess I’ll have to read it again! 😄

Disclaimer: This is just a hobby project for private use. I will not share any files as those games are still being sold and copyrighted. Just some thoughts.

Most of you probably already know this but the pre-Field of Glory era games from AGEOD were written in Delphi which was the main obstacle to improve their performance and modernize them with options like scalable UI, for example. Anyway, there's basically zero chance Matrix will ever make them open-source (unless POCUS will go rogue and release the files himself ;) ).

Well, you can hate AI for all the slops but it's actually the only realistic possibility to reverse engineer those games and update/improve them like their deserve so. The good news is a lot of data is stored in text format (though in various file names) and graphics are in BMP format. The bad news is that the main EXE file (that contains the game engine) written in Delphi will require a lot of tokens of AI agent to rev-eng and the main work will be testing and tweaking so that the new version replicates the behavior of old game with maximum accuracy. Thankfully, the save games are text files, which allows AI agent to plan it beforehand so you can just run through them and create mutliple save files that agent will analyze and compare with expected results.

I am curious if anyone else have already tried that. Currently, I am looking into Wars or Succession and all the game data was ingested by agent and converted to JSON and graphics to PNG within few minutes. Only diving into the EXE made it really busy now (which was expected). Less than one hour was needed to reach “no old files needed” step (except the EXE). Looks very promising, so far.

Map elements browser: https://i.ibb.co/jv7gd2Vm/3-winter.png

what the HELL is this command level crap in this new graviteam update, it’s miserable it has you wait 3 minutes to dish out orders, I turned on sped up command level just now and i’m waiting minutes to send an order. is this announced in anything, looked through the new manual and saw nothing. help perhaps?

Are there any games about the German unification wars you could recommend? Thanks!

Hello fellow wargamers, I'm a solo developer of Close the Sky.

Close the Sky is a real-time strategy game about city building, economy management, air defense and long-range strikes. You build one city, the enemy builds another, and both of you build up an economy, put radars and SAMs around it and send drones and missiles at each other.

What I have in the game so far:

• You can play seven nations (Ukraine, US, EU, China, Iran, Israel and Russia) and each gets its own weapons and research tree.

• Every weapon is a real one, under its real name. Shahed-136, Iskander-M, Storm Shadow, Patriot PAC-3, Iron Dome, the FP-5 Flamingo, Magura sea drones and a lot more.

• Building a city that grows into skyscrapers once density increases.

• Ramp up economy production to build air defenses and offensive weapons. For that you build refineries, power plans, electronics factories and more

• The match ends when one side's national will runs out. Will is deducted every time you get hit.

• Intelligence services allow spying on the enemy's stockpiles, research direction and more.

I'd love to get your thoughts on whether something like this would be interesting to play and if so, what would you like to see in the game?

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5062880/

Thank you for reading, I'll be happy to chat in the comments!

Sea Power has gone to the Falklands. WARNO has gone to the Caribbean. Company of Heroes 3 has gone back to the workshop. I’ll be spending the weekend losing ships in the first two.

A few AI-assisted wargames turned up in my Facebook group, too. The one that looked like somebody had taken their time got a warmer reception. There’s a lesson in there for anyone tempted to publish their first draft, which unfortunately includes me.

Do you think AI will help or hurt wargaming?

This is just a personal project.

I'd like to try to change the interface for the 30 years war from WDS games to something like the image above.

Has anyone had any luck so far with any of those games or the engine limitations are just too many?

Looking for some realistic RTS and RTT recommendations. Steel Division 2 has been great fun!

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Company of Heroes.. We celebrated by releasing the largest update Company of Heroes 3 has had since its launch! 3.0 is a massive update.. dare we say.. a game changer? It delivers major changes across numerous areas of the game, including a host of visual enhancements, campaign improvements, an audio overhaul, a Final Stand update, and much more.  

 Oh, and this weekend is a Free Weekend for Company of Heroes 3 on Steam!

 Check out the details on our Steam page, and I hope you can join us for the weekend!

In 1945, Japanese planners identified the likely American landing areas on Kyushu: Miyazaki, Ariake Bay, and the Satsuma Peninsula. They positioned divisions, dug coastal defenses, and prepared air and sea attacks on the invasion fleet.

Our new essay, “Operation Ketsugō: Japan’s Preparations for the American Invasion,” follows those preparations and the shortages that threatened the plan to contain a landing until reserves arrived.

It also explores what those choices mean for players of Panzer Campaigns: Japan ’45. Read the history behind the campaign that never happened in this week’s Game of the Week companion essay.

https://wargameds.com/blogs/news/operation-ketsugo

I've never developed an indie game before. My background is actually in game art, and I've spent most of my career working on various projects at game studios.

Over the past two years or so, I've built up my own collection of 3D models of modern naval warships. Originally, my plan was simply to sell these assets to earn some extra income. But I noticed that many of my customers were actually using my models to develop games or create mods.

So eventually, I thought, why not give game development a try myself?

I'm building this game in Unreal Engine 5.8 using Blueprints, with AI helping me handle most of the programming work. The visual effects come from purchased asset packs, while all the warship models are my own creations. I also designed the UI myself.

My goal is to create something that sits somewhere between the arcade-style gameplay of Modern Warships and the hardcore naval simulation of Sea Power.

I want to keep the gameplay relatively simple and accessible, so that even players who aren't military enthusiasts can get a basic understanding of the tactics and logic behind modern naval warfare.

The game is designed as an RTS-style naval combat game, where players can switch between different units and take direct control of them, similar to Sea Power.

So far, I've implemented the basic ship movement, weapon, damage, and sinking systems, which you can see in the gameplay video.

I haven't added any aircraft yet, but my goal is to eventually include playable helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Ideally, I'd also like to add aircraft carriers and submarines.

However, I plan to keep the radar detection and sensor systems as simplified as possible, rather than going for a fully realistic simulation.

It's out! Playing the first scenario and it's probably got the best logistics layer yet. Watching the traffic jams as I mortar advancing German troops is very satisfying.

Fog is terrifying, isn't it?

You can't see what's hiding beyond it... You have no idea what the Soviets are planning or where they're coming from.

Then !! out of nowhere, a captured StuG III suddenly emerges from it, charging straight at you!

And the worst part? You have absolutely nothing to stop it.

By the time you realize what's happening, it might already be too late...

Arma 3's base game is slightly sci-fi, most of the vehicles and weapons don't exist in real life but most are "BASED" on real life vehicles such as how the A-164 Wipeout is based off the A-10 Warthog.

But the RHS mod provides only modern day vehicles and weapons. There is another mod called CUP that provides many of the same vehicles and weapons but CUP is a copy and paste of the vehicles and weapons from the previous game Arma 2 that has no sci-fi elements, but RHS builds the vehicles and weapons from the ground-up for the new engine that Arma 3 has which provides more realistic vehicle physics.

All of the Battlefield games, GTA games, and Far Cry games don't have as good physics as Arma 3+RHS or Arma 2.

War Thunder has pretty good physics but has no infantry.

The RTS 'CMO' short for 'Command Modern Operations' is not really a game but a simulator, it's so realistic that there are 27 different countries who's military use it, and about a month ago it just received online multiplayer.

It used to be called "Command: Modern Air Naval Operations" before a update.

I've just been doing research on realistic games and wanted to share, I'm a big fan of games with air/land/sea vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arma_3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command:_Modern_Air_Naval_Operations

Title is a bit vague, I know. So let me explain what I mean. I am designing a real-time wargame in which player controls up to a hundred of units at a time. Instead of forcing the player to micromanage all that, I am developing a system in which the player will give orders to higher-echelon formations - armies. Think HoI4, think Battleplan..

If you were to design such a system, what postures would you design for an army order? I am testing my game design with these postures:

1. Defend order postures:

- Area Defense: 2/3 of the army holds the front, stacked on the threatened hexes. The reserve counterattacks any breach.

- Elastic Defense: 1/3 holds a thin front. Mobile units in reserve strike a breach from its flank.

- Stubborn Defense: nearly the whole army sits on the front, fully stacked. A small reserve only retakes lost hexes, and artillery fires until out of ammo.

2. Attack order:

- Probing: half the army attacks at good odds only, the other half waits in reserve. It's cautious with ammo.

- Concentrated: half assaults the breakthrough point whatever the odds. Mobile units exploit the gap and the rest holds the front.

- Shock: everyone attacks everywhere, with no reserve. It burns ammo and fuel fast.

Also I was thinkin of adding bomber units in support of armies, with these postures:

- Conserve: 2 strikes a day (per bomber unit), keeps half the airfield's supply, avoids heavy flak.

- Normal: 3 strikes a day, keeps 20% of the supply

- Max: 4 strikes a day, uses all the supply, reloads fastest.

Do you have any comments, questions, suggestions? It takes a lot of playtesting and tweaking to make this work. Thanks for helping out!

Greetings,

I feel I am in a bit of a gaming slump while I wait for Grand Tactician Napoleon. Do any of you recommend any wargames? Ideally with Dynamic campaigns/your actions have influence, and ideally black powder and with some real time elements, but games that do not fit these criteria are welcome as well.

Both sides plan in secret, then everything resolves at once. Planes keep their energy, so a dive now means speed later and a tight turn bleeds it off. Each turn can be replayed and scrubbed on a timeline, so you can see exactly why that Bf 109 ended up behind you.


80+ aircraft, 5 campaigns plus a free 1939 prologue, 3 difficulty levels (Hard gives you no enemy path preview, no undo, and an enemy ace hunting you).


No ads, offline, free demo, one purchase for the full game.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ovh.rootm.myplane


Happy to answer questions about the turn system.

Bill Gates said :"By the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself."

Hi everyone,

Imagine your leading division reaching a river. The engineers are still on the road, the fuel convoy is delayed, and the latest enemy report is already two hours old. Your next decision could determine whether the advance continues or stalls.

These are the kinds of command decisions I want to bring to life in FRONTENWERK.

I’m developing this historical World War II strategy game with support from ChatGPT and Codex. The campaign’s starting point is 22 June 1941. The initial focus is Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front, while the broader concept encompasses Europe and North Africa.

The video shows the game’s opening, an operational visualisation, a flight along the front, a combat example and the three historical databases with their orders of battle.

The documented map grid measures 1,080 × 994 hex positions – 1,073,520 hexes in total. The separate research databases for the Axis, Soviet Union and Allies now contain nearly 25,000 unit and organisational records and more than 4,300 person records, supplemented by portraits and historical sources. These entries cover multiple command levels and include subordinate units, organisational models and contextual records. Research and historical verification are ongoing.

A central development goal is the ability to choose your level of command: lead an army group, coordinate a corps’ operations or examine the tasks of a division and its subordinate formations more closely. AI commanders are intended to carry out assigned objectives using the forces actually available and within clearly defined limits.

Supply, information and the condition of your troops should shape every operation. Reconnaissance reports can become outdated. Exhausted formations need relief. A successful breakthrough creates new demands for transport, ammunition, repairs and replacements. In the longer term, recruitment, training, industry and research are also intended to connect with events at the front.

FRONTENWERK is still in development. The video presents parts of the current working build. The more extensive command and logistics systems describe the direction in which I want to develop the game.

I’d love to hear from people who would enjoy playing this kind of strategy game—and from anyone interested in helping bring it to life.

Contributions are welcome in many areas:

• Historical research: Units, commanders, troop strengths, locations, photographs and sources.

• Development and design: Programming, the user interface and making detailed information easier to understand.

• Player feedback and future playtesting: Assessing clarity, identifying problems and helping shape interesting command decisions.

Even a single well-sourced correction or a thoughtful suggestion can help the project move forward. Feel free to leave a comment or send me a Reddit message if you’d like to get involved.

I was at Games Ground convention this weekend thanks to an invite by Slitherine Studios, and I had a chance for a brief hands-on with Steel Platoon, the newly announced RTT. For an alpha build it was remarkably solid - I suspect it's built on the same engine as Terminator Dark Fate Defiance which may have contributed. Given that it's an early build, my impressions are pretty tentative - I think this one might be a bit too action intensive and just generally hard for my tastes, but that could of course change. Here's what I've written up about it:

https://www.wargamer.com/steel-platoon/first-impressions

Against History: WW2 is a free card game of command in the browser. You draw a hand of orders each day, choose the few you can afford, and see enemy intentions when intelligence allows.

This update adds three campaigns of six battles each:

- Sea Lion, September 1940, British side: Lympne, the Royal Military Canal, Folkestone, Newhaven, then the counter-attack to the beaches.

- Malta, July 1942, Axis side: the cancelled airborne and naval assault, from the night drop and Marsaxlokk to the airfields and the forts of the Grand Harbour.

- Burma, March to May 1942, Chinese and Allied side: Toungoo, Yenangyaung, Taunggyi, Lashio and Myitkyina, with Stilwell and Sun Li-jen on the staff, and the monsoon in May.

Units, dates and officers were checked against sources, and each battle has an "In history" note and an alternative version. Also new: a general you place in a sector, officers whose effects come from what they did historically, and naval gunfire support in the coastal campaigns.

Link: https://mgeoff1.itch.io/against-history-ww2

AI tools assisted with code, text and visuals. Corrections on the history are welcome.

The interface now uses a command table, paper order cards and campaign maps.

So I've been trying to get into wargaming for I'd say roughly 2-3 years now. I've failed in each attempts. But something just keep pulling me back to wargaming. I love warfare and history; warfare as in "tactics" and "badass equipment".

My problems is that I'd get overwhelmed too quickly. When I really click with a game or find myself getting pass that initial learning curves, I'd find myself getting really overwhelmed with the amount of decision and tactics and command and this and that and other millions other things that I have to do; eventually I'd drop the campaign or the game in the next few turns.

My first question is this: How can I minimize the overwhelmness(?idk if thats a word, english is my second language sorry lol) or do you guys have a check list of things to do in a turn?

My second question would be: How appliable is real-life doctrine and tactics in wargaming? Do I need to read a lots of field guides? (which was something I did the last time the wargaming bug bit me.) If so, can you guys please kindly linked or points to some of the sources or books that I can read up on. Even if the answer is no, I'd still appreciate the sources and books.

I really want to love wargaming; hell, I have one foot in the trench already. It's everything I want in gaming. Deep tactics, historical accurate (some) and best of all, wargaming gave me my swag back ngl.

thank you for giving me your precious time in this busy world; even if you didn't respond, thank you for reading. Sincerely, thank you.

also here's some games I adore and love eventho I am dog water at them and never finish a single campaign or scenario and why I love them. Maybe some of you give me some advices on one of these games.

• graviteam tactics mius-front (big urban combine arms combat which I love. Also love the big size of the battle. Brigade or battilion size I'd say? I don't remeber)

• Hex of steels (simple, easy to understand—still lots of decision.)

• Scourge Of War - Remastered (I love black powder and liner warfare. Calvary is a big plus—love calvary.)

• Master of Command (not really a wargames but more of a rts i think?)

• Dominions 6 (i love this game but goddamn its so overwhelming.)

• Shadow empire (love the logistic and more governing decision like hoi4. Do not like the AI generated picture tho. If it were to fit the theme I'd tolerate it.

• Sea power (Navy, airforce are too complicated for me but I want to get better at them. Seem pretty rewarding to play)

• Command Modern Operations (similar to sea power.)

• Rule the Waves 3 (spreadsheet. surprisingly enough this is the game I'm best at)

• Armored Brigade 2 (combine arms my beloved)

• and A JTS game which I can't remember the name but I remember it being quite enjoyable although confusing.