Wargame AirLand Battle

[kris]

Just played a bit, my impression was that the campaign was a bit small and short. (there is actually 4 Campaigns, I chose the biggest one)
I think they could have done a lot more with it. It would be neat if you could affect what battle groups you get, among other things.

Not now. Too few points, some useless battlegroups. Patch incoming.

Guess I'll wait a bit then, thanks for the impressions

Okay, you can more or less choose among a couple of battlegroups. I didn't understand that bit first. You use your political points to deploy them. Better groups cost more. Personally I like the fact that there are shitty battlegroups, makes it more interesting. When the AI helicopter rush you and you got almost no anti-air!

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Yeah this. Same deal with the Scandinavian Battlegroups. Swedes got some atgm infantry so they can hold a bit. Norwegians and Danes don't have shit so you are automatically fucked.

 

[kris]

Yeah this. Same deal with the Scandinavian Battlegroups. Swedes got some atgm infantry so they can hold a bit. Norwegians and Danes don't have shit so you are automatically fucked.

I like the challenge. For me there is instead a lack of pause. Obviously that is all well in multiplayer, but in some battles you miss it a lot. Often it means that you can't really start an offense as you scramble around the map to unload vechiles, move tanks to edge of forest, get reinforcements, realise reinforcements move straight in the line of fire. etc.

Or if not that, you should be able to do more in the deployment phase at least, so you don't have to manually unload all your infantry, that might even be in the line of fire directly!

 

[fizzelopeguss]

20 minute campaign mission? who are these fucking retards that come up with such shit?

 

[Branm]

Leeched!!! Will let ya know if it was worth the bandwidth

Sooooooo its crap well single player is anyway. I hadmoe fun with the European Escalation single player where I lasted a few hrs. Here i made it past two campaign missions.

Dont waste your bandwidth if you want single player.

 

[kris]

I guess you mean "campaign battles".

I had plenty of fun with single-player. Biggest problem is how the limitations on battles is poised to make them really reptitive over a longer run. different battlegroups and maps make for the variation first off, but soon you will be tired of the same map with the same battlgroup as the battle will pretty much be the same again and again.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Don't forget to mention the ultra low points. Zones give 1 point each only.

Doesn't feel like divisions/brigades fighting at all. Heck, in a 1v1 in Highway to Oslo shit escalates out of control sometimes, even without Cat C or B decks. (for those games with bros where you play for shits and giggles)

Won't even mention 4v4 on Lilehammer. T-72 offensives supported by DANA guns and Mi-24s duking it out with Cobars and Gazelles on a massive scale. That is how the campaign should feel like, Make the AI more aggressive and don't force the player to use recon infantry to assasinate CVs to end the match on huge maps with few units on them. Balance battlegroups so that you don't end up with a deck made up 70% of assault engineers.

If they switched from brigades to divisions, even if historically inaccurate for NATO, it could be accomplished. The campaign is simply not interesting and gets very tedious.

 

[Boyarpunk]

Always had Wargame: EE in my wishlist but never got around to it.
Now that AirLand Battle is out, do you guys recommend playing EE first and then AirLand Battle or skip
EE altogether and just go for A-L:B?

 

[Kane]

skip EE

 

[Konjad]

Always had Wargame: EE in my wishlist but never got around to it.
Now that AirLand Battle is out, do you guys recommend playing EE first and then AirLand Battle or skip
EE altogether and just go for A-L:B?

skip EE

 

[Boyarpunk]

Mmmmkay. Looks like I should be going straight to Air Land Battle.
Thanks gents.

 

[J_C]

This game is trolling me. I'm playing the 2nd campaign now, and I came to a standstill after the start. I want to conquer Arkush (Arkesh, Arrkes something like that), but I can't achieve victory in the given timeframe (20 minutes). This means that battle ends with a draw, and next day (next turn) we will have to fight again. And this goes on for 5 days. Of course both sides lose manpower during these battles, if this goes on for a little while, we will be fighting with sticks in the end. :D

My incompetence probably means that I lost the whole campaign, because i only have 12 days for the whole thing. And I wasted almost half of it right in the beginning.

But I like the game very much, I'm a sucker for these modern military tech strategy games.

 

[Kane]

You don't get the campain (can't blame ya, it's not explained anywhere). A battle consists of several stages. You *WILL* draw 4/5 battles.

 

[J_C]

You don't get the campain (can't blame ya, it's not explained anywhere). A battle consists of several stages. You *WILL* draw 4/5 battles.

No, I get it. I know that one battle consists of several attacks. But when I won previously, I got a minor/major victory result. Then I had to attack again, but against a weakened opponent. But this time I get a draw results, and both of us are weakened in the next battle.

 

[kris]

This game is trolling me. I'm playing the 2nd campaign now, and I came to a standstill after the start. I want to conquer Arkush (Arkesh, Arrkes something like that), but I can't achieve victory in the given timeframe (20 minutes). This means that battle ends with a draw, and next day (next turn) we will have to fight again. And this goes on for 5 days. Of course both sides lose manpower during these battles, if this goes on for a little while, we will be fighting with sticks in the end. :D

My incompetence probably means that I lost the whole campaign, because i only have 12 days for the whole thing. And I wasted almost half of it right in the beginning.

But I like the game very much, I'm a sucker for these modern military tech strategy games.

Isn't the winning condition about the morale? I am on day 10/10 and while most battles been stalemates I taken out a few enemy bgroups so I am having a big morale advantage and I guess I will win.

 

[J_C]

No, the winning conditions are pretty basic actually. On every battle, there is a 20 minutes time limit to gather x ammount of points (by killing the enemy units). If you do that, you win that round and you achieve a minor/major victory. Then you fight again, but this time you have to gather less points, while the enemy has to gather more. You do this 2-3 times, until you achieve total victory, meaning you destroy the enemy battlegroup entirely.

Now if neither the player, nor the AI can reach X ammounts of point in the 20 minute limit, the battle ends with a draw. Next round there is another battle, but both sides has less command points and have to gather more points to win. Now this is what's happening to me.

 

[kris]

J_C, I meant at the campaign end.

 

[J_C]

J_C, I meant at the campaign end.

Aha. Which campaign are you doing? I am doing the 2nd one, which said something about conquering 3 specific cities in 12 days to win.

 

[kris]

I am doing the fourth one. I only remember it was about stopping the offense and then push back the commies.

 

[J_C]

I am doing the fourth one. I only remember it was about stopping the offense and then push back the commies.

It seems that the 4th campaign's objective is moral based then. But the 2nd one is about controlling specifi areas.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Man, I love this game, even despite the fact campaign mode is pretty poor and AI sucks. Multiplayer must be a total incline. Where do you guys get those steam gifts from? It's rather expensive for my wallet at this time. Especially after all those Kickstarters and Rome II preorder :/

 

[J_C]

Man, I love this game, even despite the fact campaign mode is pretty poor and AI sucks. Multiplayer must be a total incline. Where do you guys get those steam gifts from? It's rather expensive for my wallet at this time. Especially after all those Kickstarters and Rome II preorder :/

Well I get mine from anus_pounder , God bless his soul.

Yesterday he and I played an online campaign, and I have to say, it doesn't work too well. It clearly seems that the campaing was made for singleplayer, and the devs tacked on multiplayer as an afterthought. The reason I say this is that the campaign is 100% the same as in singleplayer, meaning there is no balance between the 2 players. One of them will automatically be in a disadventage. In the first few campaigns it is the host who has the upper hand, and later the client player. It is just not fair that we go into a battle and one of the player has to gather 2000 points to win, but the other 4000. In singleplayer this makes sense, because this is based on the difficulty of the campaign.

People should just stick to skirmish multiplayer or singleplayer campaign. The latter can be interesting, although I anticipated something bigger or more complex, like in Total War.

 

[anus_pounder]

Man, I love this game, even despite the fact campaign mode is pretty poor and AI sucks. Multiplayer must be a total incline. Where do you guys get those steam gifts from? It's rather expensive for my wallet at this time. Especially after all those Kickstarters and Rome II preorder :/

Well I get mine from anus_pounder , God bless his soul.

Yesterday he and I played an online campaign, and I have to say, it doesn't work too well. It clearly seems that the campaing was made for singleplayer, and the devs tacked on multiplayer as an afterthought. The reason I say this is that the campaign is 100% the same as in singleplayer, meaning there is no balance between the 2 players. One of them will automatically be in a disadventage. In the first few campaigns it is the host who has the upper hand, and later the client player. It is just not fair that we go into a battle and one of the player has to gather 2000 points to win, but the other 4000. In singleplayer this makes sense, because this is based on the difficulty of the campaign.

People should just stick to skirmish multiplayer or singleplayer campaign. The latter can be interesting, although I anticipated something bigger or more complex, like in Total War.

In hindsight, I think I had a slim chance of winning If I had pressed with the German group during our first battle. You yourself noted that you were very careless during that fight. The loss of an initiative point due to a draw ultimately didn't phase you too much, but was pretty fatal for me. As for the Swedish battlegroup? It takes a better player than me to counter a Russian army with only rookies while having a point disadvantage.

 

[kris]

I don't know, I think unbalanced battles could be interesting. Expecially since both players know about the circumstances and then just work with it.

I mean fighting T-80s with the Scandinavian battlegroups is tough, but satisfying when you do take some out. Having lost all anti-air while opponent have plenty of planes... you are just put in interesting situations. I guessed you played the fourth scenario, as Nato then I guess you got to gather enough money for that American armour battlegroup, which is pretty much the only real strong one.

 

[anus_pounder]

I don't know, I think unbalanced battles could be interesting. Expecially since both players know about the circumstances and then just work with it.

I mean fighting T-80s with the Scandinavian battlegroups is though, but satisfying when you do take some out. Having lost all anti-air while opponent have plenty of planes... you are just put in interesting situations. I guessed you played the fourth scenario, as Nato then I guess you got to gather enough money for that American armour battlegroup, which is pretty much the only real strong one.

If you're talking about us, we played the first campaign of the 4. I was NATO, he was Pact.

 

[J_C]

Man, I love this game, even despite the fact campaign mode is pretty poor and AI sucks. Multiplayer must be a total incline. Where do you guys get those steam gifts from? It's rather expensive for my wallet at this time. Especially after all those Kickstarters and Rome II preorder :/

Well I get mine from anus_pounder , God bless his soul.

Yesterday he and I played an online campaign, and I have to say, it doesn't work too well. It clearly seems that the campaing was made for singleplayer, and the devs tacked on multiplayer as an afterthought. The reason I say this is that the campaign is 100% the same as in singleplayer, meaning there is no balance between the 2 players. One of them will automatically be in a disadventage. In the first few campaigns it is the host who has the upper hand, and later the client player. It is just not fair that we go into a battle and one of the player has to gather 2000 points to win, but the other 4000. In singleplayer this makes sense, because this is based on the difficulty of the campaign.

People should just stick to skirmish multiplayer or singleplayer campaign. The latter can be interesting, although I anticipated something bigger or more complex, like in Total War.

In hindsight, I think I had a slim chance of winning If I had pressed with the German group during our first battle. You yourself noted that you were very careless during that fight. The loss of an initiative point due to a draw ultimately didn't phase you too much, but was pretty fatal for me. As for the Swedish battlegroup? It takes a better player than me to counter a Russian army with only rookies while having a point disadvantage.

Yeah, thinking about it again... In the first battle, when I was careless, I would probably have lost the battle if there was no time limit, inspite of being in an adventage. You ranked up lots of points. Thanks to the 20 minutes limit it was a draw.

 

[kris]

I don't know, I think unbalanced battles could be interesting. Expecially since both players know about the circumstances and then just work with it.

I mean fighting T-80s with the Scandinavian battlegroups is though, but satisfying when you do take some out. Having lost all anti-air while opponent have plenty of planes... you are just put in interesting situations. I guessed you played the fourth scenario, as Nato then I guess you got to gather enough money for that American armour battlegroup, which is pretty much the only real strong one.

If you're talking about us, we played the first campaign of the 4. I was NATO, he was Pact.

Hah, yeah that one is really uneven. Just tried it yesterday. In particular the first battle was a rout.