Comparison to other games

[wdkruger]

I am considering this title. How does this system compare to WITE or to the old SSG titles? A good AI is very important as is good smooth mechanics. For reference, I enjoyed Unity of Command, but found its replay value too limiting. WITE is amazing, but the AI just isn't that good and it is a little too massive for the amount of time that I have to play.

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: wdkruger

I am considering this title. How does this system compare to WITE or to the old SSG titles? A good AI is very important as is good smooth mechanics. For reference, I enjoyed Unity of Command, but found its replay value too limiting. WITE is amazing, but the AI just isn't that good and it is a little too massive for the amount of time that I have to play.

I haven't played WITE in over a year and I quit playing it because it was unsatisfying in many ways. So my comparisons with it may be a bit unfair, but -- anyway -- I like DCCB better for at least the following reasons:

DCCB has roads and bridges
DCCB focuses on a decisive campaign
DCCB has a scale I prefer in terms of time and space and units
DCCB represents air and sea assets in a way I prefer
DCCB is visually more informative than WITE
DCCB has a May 12 start scenario
DCCB has a free-set-up May 12 start scenario
DCCB has a fun way of interacting with the high command and using army commanders to influence battles

[Toby42]

The game is a good buy! You will enjoy it. Much better and satisfying to play than WitE, or Unity of Command. Everything works together pretty well. Most of the complaints come from the obligatory whiners that complain that this, or that is not historical! Like any of us were there???

Vic is very responsive in listening to legimate concerns about gameplay....Some people take issue as to how he has designed some things, but this is his vision of how the game should work....

[Redmarkus5]

Best East Front war game I have played ever.

[Toby42]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Best East Front war game I have played ever.

Amen to that!

[Keunert]

they will soon build a shrine somewhere in the netherlands to annualy comemorate the release of Vic's finest game so far.

[Redmarkus5]

More like a war game Cathedral

We will come dressed like DCCB Monks!

[Grotius]

My favorite East Front game, too. The AI is better than that of WiTE. The AI is quite capable of encirclement and counter-encirclement; it defends objectives reasonably but also gives ground when it should. It does get a few bonuses on "Normal," but the playing field is level on "Easy." I like playing on Normal.

The officer system in Case Blue is my favorite innovation. Each officer gets a "deck" of cards and a pool of Command points. Every turn, the officer can play one card, if he has the Command to pay for it. The cards do things like boost morale, increase a unit's speed, improve a subordinate HQ's staff experience, help dig entrenchments, lead an attack, etc. Very cool.

I also agree that air is handled better in this game than in WiTE, where it was just too danged abstract. Here I feel like I have more control over my air units.

The UI might take a little getting used to. In my first game, I kept moving units accidentally, because I'd select "move" and then forget to unselect "move" before clicking on another hex. Also, you plot attacks by clicking the target first, choosing attack (or arty or air), then choosing offensive units to participate. It works fine, but it's not what I was used to from other games.

You mentioned not wanting to invest too much time. This game does ship with manageable short scenarios, and Vic has uploaded a third free short scenario. And other people are modding more such scenarios. That said, the longer scenarios are LONG. I'm playing the "Case Blue" campaign, 150 turns, and I'm on turn 4 after several days and many hours. It doesn't take as long to plot turn 1 as in War in the Pacific, but turns 2-4 weren't much quicker for me, whereas in WITP the later turns tend to move quicker (as things are already in motion). Anyway, for any of the long scenarios, this game would require a significant time investment.

Hope this helps.

[Pawsy]

Best east front game by a long way. I play WITE and was WITP player. Played a fair bit HPS stuff too. TBH they seemed they always were a lot of counter shuffling.

I find this game quicker, more fluid and more rewarding. AI is good to.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: starbuck310

Best east front game by a long way. I play WITE and was WITP player. Played a fair bit HPS stuff too. TBH they seemed they always were a lot of counter shuffling.

I find this game quicker, more fluid and more rewarding. AI is good to.

+1

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: Treale

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Best East Front war game I have played ever.

Amen to that!

What they said!!

[bwheatley]

Edit: These are only my personal opinions please no flame wars. Of course the boards over here are a bit more civilized than WITE board at times.

I really like WITE but WITE is more of a on rails game where you're going to follow history and both sides don't get the flexibility (only the soviets) to make it a fair fight. But i love the game though there are enough things that piss me off that i stopped playing it last year (as you see by the ARA that is not finished). The 1 week scale was too frustrating you'd open a turn and all the sudden you have whole army groups trapped. And since they are trapped even on your turn after your soldiers have turned into little girls who can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. You'd have constant battles where the attacker wouldn't lose a single soldier. The UI was not very intuitive. And i don't buy the argument that intuitive = too simple. ATG & DC(even more simple) have simple UI's that still let you get to the nerdy level data if you want to see it.
I can't think of a time in ATG/DC where you go more then 2 levels deep into something where in WITE you can be so many levels deep in the commanders report sometimes you forgot what you were originally looking for.

All that WITE bashing aside man it is nice. I think years down the road when WITE:FieldMarshall Edition (like WITP:AE) is released it will be perfect. The community will also more flexibility that paying customers are asking for instead of being stuck to garys "historic" mantra. There is sooooo much data that you can dig into. With as much effort as gary always puts into logistics that was one area where they took shortcuts and it sucks. It's going to get better with WITW. ATG normally has so much data as well but DC2 skins over some of the lower level nuts and bolts to make it less scary for people who aren't into ATG's style.

The logistics system for ATG/DC is tried and true. The ability in DC (not wite) to be able to 1) say hold or attack at all costs and set loss limit to 100%.
Being able to prioritize replacements: it's not perfect yet but it's a lot better than what you had to dick with in WITE to try to have any control over things.
Being able as germany to build new units or disband other units. Not being limited to only having what germany "historically" had makes the game a lot of fun i think. And if there are people who want that it's easy enough to mod in a script that every X turns requests you disband X number of PowerPoints to send "West".

I'd say both games are worthy of spending money on. But if you only had money for one game at first i'd start with DC2. Vic and the guys at 2by3(wite) are all good guys. Vic's super good about supporting issues. With all his games when i point out a bug it gets fixed. You can tell he pours his heart into these games and he doesn't ever dismiss you out of hand with the "not historic" bat. He'll say I did this because of that and that's the end of it.

The only knock i ever had against DC1 was no editor and now vic added that onto DC1 as well so i might even go back and play it again .

DC has all the awesomeness of ATG but it's got a nicer shine to it and it's more polished than the wargame construction setup of Advancted Tactics.

[Templer_12]

@ bwheatley

Thank you for your detailed and comprehensive report.
Your view is very interesting and instructive.
I quit a year ago playing Gary Grigsby's War in the East.
I stoped because of the insane time the AI take on my older system.
45 min more and are just too long for me.

[Keunert]

Another point about time investment: you can play the game without having to know all nuances. a lot of the chrome stuff you can either use or ignore. against the ai you will do just fine playing DC like a medium complexity boardgame: move chits around, try to have them near their HQ and you will have supply, replacements and that's enough to play it.

but once you are familiar with the system you will want to know the finer aspects of the game mechanic. at this point you will discover the elegance of the game: it is basically a simple game but with cards, officers, the plethora of statistics it gets really deep. there is a lot of replay value in this. not only because there are options like free setup and an editor, but also because every pbem will go a different route.

the big campaigns are time burners. but you will get a lot faster once you know your army better.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Keunert

Another point about time investment: you can play the game without having to know all nuances. a lot of the chrome stuff you can either use or ignore. against the ai you will do just fine playing DC like a medium complexity boardgame: move chits around, try to have them near their HQ and you will have supply, replacements and that's enough to play it.

but once you are familiar with the system you will want to know the finer aspects of the game mechanic. at this point you will discover the elegance of the game: it is basically a simple game but with cards, officers, the plethora of statistics it gets really deep. there is a lot of replay value in this. not only because there are options like free setup and an editor, but also because every pbem will go a different route.

the big campaigns are time burners. but you will get a lot faster once you know your army better.

Ya agreed..i think the first turn is always the worst but once you get in the groovy you can burn through turns pretty fast. It just depends how much of a "double checker" you are. Sometimes i'll be done but just wind up spending another hour just making sure i didn't miss anything lol.

Keunert is right about the elegance when i started playing AT/G (The predecessor to DC series) it's simplicity drew me in but as you play matches then get your ass handed to you. Then you realize there is a lot you're missing out if you don't start to learn the little things.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Templer

@ bwheatley

Thank you for your detailed and comprehensive report.
Your view is very interesting and instructive.
I quit a year ago playing Gary Grigsby's War in the East.
I stoped because of the insane time the AI take on my older system.
45 min more and are just too long for me.

Also on my old laptop the turns are pretty quick. You can change the amount of time an in initial settings to tell the AI to spend MORE or less time on orders as well. So if you have a really slow cpu you can set the cpu to use less time on orders. That will speed up the turns for you at the cost of the AI maybe making so moves that are more poor. on my box now case blue with most time on AI will run for about 5 minutes before the turns back to me.

[Toby42]

It's amazing how a lot of people want to change this game into something it's not! Quite a few of these "Suggestions" would make the game into something entirely different than what it currently is....

It's impossible to try and please everybody.

[ComradeP]

It's a good game. I think the usage of cards and the value of staffs/the experience of HQ's (and not just the leader) are nice for variety, and/or good additions to the genre.

I can't think of any strategic or operational level wargame that I own that models artillery and air power somewhat accurately, and Case Blue is no exception, but aside from that the combat system is also quite good at its core.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Treale

It's amazing how a lot of people want to change this game into something it's not! Quite a few of these "Suggestions" would make the game into something entirely different than what it currently is....

It's impossible to try and please everybody.

Yea. The real beauty is now that vic added the editor we can do almost anything we want with it. It's like ATG with a different UI skin on top. Plus the awesomeness of leaders which were possible in ATG but look to be easier to implement now.

[Toby42]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

ORIGINAL: Treale

It's amazing how a lot of people want to change this game into something it's not! Quite a few of these "Suggestions" would make the game into something entirely different than what it currently is....

It's impossible to try and please everybody.

Yea. The real beauty is now that vic added the editor we can do almost anything we want with it. It's like ATG with a different UI skin on top. Plus the awesomeness of leaders which were possible in ATG but look to be easier to implement now.

It is definately a unique and challenging game! Vic is very responsive in fixing anything that not's working correctly...