AWD or MH?

[JMI]

Hello everyboy!

Has enyone tried the Making History game? I´m planning to buy a new game and I´m not sure if it´s going to be AWD or the Making History game. Could someone please tell me which would be the better buy? And why?

Thanks in advance!

[Charles Lamb]

I have not played the Making History game because I like this so much I would not dream of trying another at the moment !

Actually I think that they are quite different. AWD is deceptively simple and you can play the entire war through in an evening. Its entire focus is grand Strategy from the Global perspective and I think that it really does tend to play out in a way that is believably historic.

I say 'deceptively' because once you switch to multiplayer there is another layer to it and it is balanced like a good chess game (the AI is very good anyhow but its never quite the same as against other humans.)

Making History looks to be a lot more graphic and also seems to focus on theatres and operations like Normandy etc...I have not played it but obviously the scale and timescale are different ?

AWD is a game that I do not seem to tire off, it is relatively simple, quick to play yet infinitely replayable. Akin to Civilisation or Axis and Allies.

A Classic rather than a Graphic !

[WanderingHead]

Somehow it seems like you'll get more AWD fans responding to this post .

I think that AWD vs MH will largely be a matter of taste. I read some things that concerned me about some implementation problems in MH (like Japanese fighters making frequent appearance in the Med and such oddities), but I have the impression that the team would be working hard on improving any such glaring issues.

I downloaded the MH demo and tried it. In my view, MH was too detailed. In AWD, there is little decision overhead. Almost every decision you make is important. In MH, many little decisions add up to each individual decision being less important on its own. Also, in MH I found that I spend multiple turns doing nothing but following through on decisions, rather than making new exciting decisions.

Unless things have changed, MH does not support PBEM. And a PBEM game with MH simply doesn't really work well anyway, because with 2 week turns (give or take, I don't recall) exchanging 1 turn a day it would take about a year to play one game. I think that each MH turn can be played fairly quickly since it is largely following through on decisions instead of agonizing over new ones (I read about 10-15 minutes). So on the whole it doesn't really seem like a very satisfying PBEM experience to me.

AWD is excellent for PBEM.

I also read on the forums that sea transportation was rather poorly modeled in MH, which is a key deficiency for a good portrayal of the sub war.

I also read on the MH forums that supply issues could be better addressed (there is a tracing requirement, but that is all). Some of these issues lead to the possibilities of units operating in weird theaters (like Japanese in Med).

Don't get me wrong, I have very little experience with MH, and much more experience with AWD (hey, it is an AWD forum!). I know that the greater detail of MH is in some people's interest (in fact I myself would like about +50% detail in AWD). But the above issues are the reasons that I myself am more interested in AWD and have not purchased MH.

[Lebatron]

I purchased MH a month ago and only played it a little while. I find it to be a rather poor grand scale WW2 game. While graphically pleasing at first, that one nice aspect of the game quickly got old. In fact, I began to find the 3D map and units just got in the way of easy visibilty. I'll take a good 2D map for my wargames anyday over a 3D one. The gameplay was IMO lacking. Chess like strategy was absent. Many things didn't make sense, like how sub warfare worked. Subs are nothing more than another warship to use against other warships. Kind of like how subs are used in A&A. Another aspect of the game that really bothered me was that you could not play out a normal WW2 game. In two games I played, America declared war on Russia after Russia attacked Finland!!! That would have really brought a smile to my face if I didn't find it pathetic. After such things like that happen, I just start over because why play any further. I never went very far into the game because by the time I got close to Barbarossa the worlds political situation never made any sense. And they try to pass this game off as an educational experience of all things. What are kids supposed to learn from this game? That German subs always attacked Allied warships? That the US declared war on Russia? I know I'm being hard on this game but someone should have cried foul on this company when they tried to pass this game off as an education tool just to inflate sales. I can think of so many wargames, including this one, that would have better deserved the increased sales from the TV exposure MH got. 

[bbmike]

To be fair, Making History is SUPPOSED to be a 'what if?' game and not follow actual history. I tried the game and so far it hasn't sucked me in. I think it does have potential though. I recommend trying the demo.
And speaking of demos, I have this one (World at War). Are there any beginners guides or tips anywhere that might be of help? I've considered buying this game for a while but can't seem to get off the fence. It seems a little complicated but so did Forge of Freedom until I figured it out (and it was well worth it!).

[marc420]

Making History did nothing for me. I remember the feeling of playing an incomplete game that wasn't ready yet. But to be honest, it did so little for me I only played it breifly.

AWD amazes me right now. To the point where I almost called in sick to work today to stay home and play it.

From first impressions, its hands down to AWD for me.

[christian brown]

I've come to the conclusion that this is the best war game ever released. I'm currently saving for a 3000 USD laptop just so I can play it (w/o crashes) and wireless connectivity globally so I can keep up with PBEMs anywhere I go. Do I have a problem? I think not, sir, because; as previously stated, this is "the best war game ever released."

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
I'm currently saving for a 3000 USD laptop just so I can play it (w/o crashes) and wireless connectivity globally so I can keep up with PBEMs anywhere I go.

Ahh, if only this expenditure could mean more money for the game developers ... [:(]

[JMI]

Thanks for your input everybody!

In fact I ended up buying both games, and after playing for a while I can only come to the same conclusion as most of you guys: AWD is simply just a better game! It didn´t take long before I got bored with MH. Somehow it is just...well...boring? A lot of features I don´t like about it. Bottomline is that it did not do the trick for me. But AWD does. I like the way it reminds me of the, in many ways, brilliant Axis & Allies. It´s just deeper and more complex and challenging. I´m sure I´ll have a lot of good quality gaming with this game. It seems to me that we live in a time of very bad quality strategy games. Most of the things that come out, IMO, are ruined by irrelevant bling bling. (Great graphical effects, but poor poor gameplay).

Luckily, there ARE good games out there, although they seem hard to find. AWD seems to be one of these quality games.

Keep up the good work with these types of games, Matrix!

Thanks again for your views and opinions!

JMI

[Rabbitman]

I just wanted to thank you for this thread, as I just got(about an hour or 2 ago) an catalog e-mail from a local Aussie games company and this MH game looked pretty impressive and I was considering purchasing it.

I don't hold out a lot of hope after reading this thread but will try the demo out anyway, once it's uploaded(up to 99% now).

One last thing about the game, can you be Australia, or did I misunderstand the MH promotional add in the aforementioned e-mail?? IF you can, does anyone know what it's like playing as Australia?? Be a bit difficult I should think.