Quick first impressions

[Solaristics]

I've just finished my first play through and I wanted to give my quick impressions:

- very professional, solid and polished

- the editor is a metagame in itself, and is feature-rich, easy to use and understand

- old skool manual that will make grogs cry with joy

- almost everything about the game is intuitive (for a seasoned gamer at least). I just dived right into a scenario and started playing. Things acted and reacted in thematic and logical ways

- I'm thinking about strategy almost the whole time, not "how do I do x", or worse, "why can't I do x", or even worse "ugh, I have to do all that to make x happen". That is, I forget about the mechanics - they are transparent and (mostly) effortless and I see the strategic situation instead of the game.

- the AI makes you work for your victory: planning and disciplined execution are required.


There are some short-comings, but not many, and most relate to the UI, and I hope these can be improved:
- I have some issues with the upgrade UI: just too many clicks. So many that I couldn't be bothered upgrading some stuff. Something like alt-left-click to maximally upgrade a unit from the map would sort this. Similarly, although not as urgently, for reinforcements.

- The green numbers for available upgrades and reinforcements need to change colour when you can not in fact upgrade or reinforce that turn (e.g. the unit had moved).

- The roundel changing shades (from shade 25 of gray to shade 26!) when strikes are no longer available is just too subtle, and even harder to make out when they are flashing. I had to do a lot of clicking to verify if strikes were available.

- The AI needs some enhanced scripting to take account of not unreasonable alternative historical outcomes (discussed elsewhere), and some issues with escorting transports.

- This might be just me, and perhaps I need to RTFM, but the flashing/not flashing roundel indicator didn't seem that useful a flag.


I hesitated buying this game because:
- "are you crazy, it just got released! Come back in 6-12 months." No issues here, feature-complete and rock solid (except for one occasional bug with modal screens reported in the appropriate subforum, but it can be worked around easily);

- "oh no, not another ETO grand strategy!". Been playing these since first edition Third Reich, and wasn't really interested in rehashing it again. I actually started with the 1939 scenario as the Axis and managed just one turn, but I just couldn't bring myself to play through yet another Polish turkey shoot. So I stopped, opened the editor, took the 1942 scenario, surrendered the SU, redeployed the Axis forces, and went from there. In 10 mins I started what was an engrossing "what if" that went on for several days (with lots of ideas how to improve upon it as a more fully modded scenario). Also, it might be ETO grand strategy, but it is ETO grand strategy done right.

Overall, if you have any interest in this conflict at this scale then, based on my one play through, I'd recommend this game.

[sPzAbt653]

I have some issues with the upgrade UI: just too many clicks.

+1. Reinforcements also.