WW2:Time of Wrath

[Raptor1]

I have Danube Front '85

[Skybird]

Is there a european retailer for HPS? with shipping and taxes, these games become very expensive when ordering from NA. did that once with Harpoon 3 many years ago, and got a bad wake-up call from custom duty. Will not risk that again.

Danube - stable? Is it a good title? Sorry, but knowing that you have it, Raptor, helps me nothing. I have no idea what to expect of these HPS titles, how they play, how realistic or unrealistic it is, the sequence of play. Found two links promising reviews, but both links broken.

I know an old cosim, the Third World War series by GDW, also the Assault! series by GDW. How does it compare to these two, for example?

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Danube - stable? Is it a good title? Sorry, but knowing that you have it, Raptor, helps me nothing. I have no idea what to expect of these HPS titles, how they play, how realistic or unrealistic it is, the sequence of play. Found two links promising reviews, but both links broken.

I know an old cosim, the Third World War series by GDW, also the Assault! series by GDW. How does it compare to these two, for example?

Sorry, thought you had a specific question about it.

It's stable, and IMO a pretty good game.

The gameplay is a pretty simple IGOUGO TBS. Units are mostly battalion scale (There are some companies, mostly Recon units) and are represented by an equipment type which has the typical values such as soft attack, hard attack, etc., morale, quality, fatigue and some special attributes. Units have movement points which they expend during the turn on actions such as moving (Obviously), deploying to and from travel mode, firing on enemy units, assaulting hexes and the like. Units of course can also suffer from conditions such as being out of ammo, out of fuel, disrupted, isolated...

A few elements are abstracted, such as wing fixed aircraft (You choose a target to call bombers or attack aircraft on if they're available, and the flight might either go through or be intercepted by SAMs or fighters), SIGINT which tells you the location of certain enemy HQs and jamming which puts HQs out of command.

It's hard to judge how realistic or unrealistic it is as the actual war or anything realistically similar to it has ever happened. The fighting seems mostly realistic to me; there are a few cases where casualties seem too low (If I call an attack aircraft squadron against a battalion of tanks, they would usually lose no more than 1 or 2 tanks), though I'm not the best judge of that.

Here's a review of Fulda Gap, it's still pretty relevant as the game system is mostly the same:

http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2002/08/fuldagap/

(Some of this stuff, like chemical weapons and helicopters blocking units have been changed since then)

Note that the larger scenarios and grand campaign are enormeous, may take quite a while to complete one of those.

[Skybird]

Thanks, this sounds very much like what I am interested in in scale. I am seriously considering it now.

the product description says that there is some kind of "uber" scenario were the whole front from Denmark to Italy is beign covered - I assume that is in combination with the other two titles in that series? They also say that the changes implemented by Danube, would be implemented into the earlier two titles as well (for which, I assume, they need to be installed, of course).

Is there a scenario editor?

[Raptor1]

The Grand Campaign scenario does not require the other games. You might want the other games for the smaller campaign or scenarios that they cover (I think Fulda Gap's scenarios have been integrated into NGP, not sure though).



(This is modded, of course)

The new features introduced in DF were patched into NGP and FG, they do that to all their series once new games with relevant new features are out.

There's an OOB and scenario editor for making new scenarios. You can't edit the map, but you can use portions (or all) of it for new scenarios.

[Skybird]

I just ordered it.

BTW, for anybody reading this thread and being inzerested in HPS and living not in North America, but Europe:

http://www.store4war.com/public/index.php

Here you can get the games from france, europe. If you consider shipping costs and custom duty, you probbaly get a slightly cheaper ride with this shop, compared to NWS. Also, NWS listed shipping options on a separate info site, but when trying to place an order, via paypal, paypal procedure was launched without me being given a choice for shipping options, nor game price and shipping costs listed on the paypal bill in advance, before you confirm transaction. read again: they wanted me to file a general cheque blanche without listing shipping, shipping costs. If I would have pressed the confirm button, I would have had no clue how much money they actually sack in from my banking account! This is not how it should be.

Paypal via that French shop now did things like they should be: listing all costs in advance on a bill by paypal. Also, since it is inside the EU zone, I think there is no bad surprise on delivery regarding custom duty. at least I never had to pay customs when ordering from British Amazon, and a shop in Holland.

Anyhow, looking forward to it. Now i will check if the manual can be gotten via download somewhere. I put some hope into this game indeed - can't wait!

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Anyhow, looking forward to it. Now i will check if the manual can be gotten via download somewhere. I put some hope into this game indeed - can't wait!

You can download the update to the the printable documentation from HPS' site, it has the user manual and program manual you can extract.