Recommend any squad/platoon/company tactics

[Korgan]

I've been playing some Close Combat: The Longest Dat, and it's a lot of fun, but lacks good AI (too reckless once the fighting's on, but doesn't concentrate forces right) and variety. So recommend something that's not JA, X-Com or Infestation, has some RPG elements and challenging opposition.
EDIT: I decided to leave it as "The Longest Dat"

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Firefight has a pretty decent AI. Not decent enough to win against an experienced player, of course, but it provides enough challenge to make me feel that every my victory - in defence and in attack has to be earned and is very close to defeat.

 

[spectre]

There's always more Close Combat where it came from.

Challenging opposition is a relative term, though.

Silent Storm goes here (you may want to give Hammer and Sickle a pass here).
You may like Panzer General 3D and III (the new system feels almost rpg-ish, but you have to get used to it, I admit).
Waht else, UFO Afterlight and Aftershock are ok for a while (-shock get repetitive after a while, -light has some art direction issues here and there), but I dig the RtWP system.

What else, you may try Faces of War and Men of War. Incubation is a nice oldie to try, though RPG - light.

I got hold of 9th company and Combat Mission: Shock Force, will see how it turns out.

Brigade E5 and 7.62 may be a pain if you're not into gunporn, but if you're desperate...

 

[overtenemy]

7.62 FUCKIN RUUUUUUULES

 

[Big Nose George]

Soldiers At War
WH40k Chaos Gate

 

[denizsi]

I tried to play Brigade E5 several times. I just couldn't get into the whole split-seconds RTWP. It never felt right.

 

[Raghar]

Tactic Ogre.
Fire emblem IV.
Fantasy wars.

 

[laclongquan]

If you can play a PSX game try

Front Mission 3

A mecha tactical turnbased squad based RPG. Minimum of 2, maximum of 6 (in certain missions). 2 stroylines branching right at start, a few more branching inside each that is quite hard to pin down. Fiddling around with your mech by exchange part/weapons/techniques . hot headed hero, bland and uninteresting heroines.

 

[mondblut]

BE5 and 762 indeed

 

[mondblut]

I tried to play Brigade E5 several times. I just couldn't get into the whole split-seconds RTWP. It never felt right.

Split-seconds is about the only way to do RTWP right, with firearms at least. And you can always turn off excess pauses. I typically only keep "no orders" and "new/known enemy sighted" on.

 

[GarfunkeL]

If nothing else, the various Steel Panthers games. There are some scenarios that focus on a company level (in WW2, MBT and WAW - the three main versions of Steel Panthers at the moment) plus you can always make your own random battles and give the AI only very little points to build its army, ensuring that both sides will have a company or so.

SPBT even has a USMC Vietnam campaign which is tailored for a company, IIRC. Sure, the scope is bit bigger than X-Com or JA but you might still like 'em.

 

[Panthera]

The Combat Mission series is the absolute king of squad combat.

But, if you want platoon level, I recommend: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/318 ... ign.Series

 

[Korgan]

I'll check out CM: Afrika Corps sooner or later, although AG bashes it for supposedly mediocre AI. What I'll get now is PG3, is it buggy? Does it have the Fantasy Wars syndrome where you've got to beat every mission in like 4 turns to get the best reward and stay on top of the levelling curve?

 

[spectre]

Unpatched PG has crashes to desktop. If you patch it, though, it gets surprisingly stable. Just don't alt-tab it, cause it almost guarantees a ctd.

Also, be aware that there is Panzer General 3D Assault and Panzer General III Scorched Earth. They have different campaigns (SE is western front, 3D is the east), and play a bit differently: SE feels a bit more polished, but 3D has more and better campaigns.
Also, due to a major change in how roster slots work, 3d assault forces you to make difficult choices, but results in a smaller overall number of units you command.

Now, if someone would point me to additional campaigns for PG III I would be one happy man.

Anyways, regarding the levelling curve, the bonuses for a major vistory are significant enough so you will want them (and its not that hard on easier settings), but it is possible to amke do without them, you wil just have to make tough choices about what to upgrade.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I know it's not squad based, but since people brought up PG: Have you tried PeG-WW2?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=32594

( it's completely free )

 

[ecliptic]

Men of War is pretty fantastic.

 

[spectre]

Faces of war is a bit better though for me. It keeps it all on squad level (at least from what I saw) where its control scheme works best.

Regarding PeG WW2, waaay better than vanilla Peoples General, in my opinion, I am still torn between this and PG3, on the one hand I prefer the former for the realism and the number of available units and customization, but the promotions, veteran orders and the actions system from PG3 works so much better for me.