I've been prototyping a wargame that can run itself independently as a simulation and allows for the player to influence events. The other half of this is that the player at any time can take over any nation in the simulation and control it like they were playing a wargame. I've currently implemented a detailed supply network, the start of advanced ai (they take formations, form army groups, and defend or attack based on perceived threats and weaknesses). The ai plans for naval invasions, fortifies frontlines, launches flanking attacks, can call for airborne operations, etc. The frontlines move naturally as forces move as well. I'm curious if anyone has some ideas for other things to implement into the game. Currently, the game spans from ww2 tech to the 1980s and units upgrade as nations tech up. All the art is currently placeholder art so I can focus on the simulation and ai, and make sure that things work as intended.

Current units include:
Land Units

- Rifle infantry (with grenades)

-Anti Tank Infantry

-Mechanized Infantry (currently reinforcements only, though they do join attacks)

-Tanks

Sea Units:

- Patrol craft

-Destroyers

-Cruisers

-Battleships

-Aircraft carriers (these spawn with their own independent air wings that take off and dock from the ship)

Air Units:

Fighters

Bombers

Recon

Aircraft carriers get their own aircraft, but they fall into these categories

I've found myself with an itch, and I'm looking for a game that will scratch it.

I've been reading a book on German capital ships of WW2, and just finished a chapter on Admiral Scheer's Atlantic Sortie of late 1940 to early 1941. A few things stood out to me:

• The objective was as much about causing organisational havoc in the Allied convoy system as it was actually sinking ships.
• Whilst they did sink Allied ships, they also captured them to send back to France, and/or looted the contents to keep themselves supplied.
• Following on from the previous point, Scheer's captain had to consider losing some of his crew to sail the captured ships back to europe, and also deal with taking on hundreds of prisoners.
• Scheer was part of a combined effort - it had a supply ship that it would occasionally rendezvous with to re-oil and re-arm and would often co-operate with armed merchant raiders operating in the area.

There are plenty of wargames that deal with the straightforward sea battles, throwing big shells and torpedos at people etc. But I feel like theres something really interesting to be found in the strategic, tactical and logistic questions posed by the points above.

I'm having a lot of fun playing Rule The Waves 3, which does have a raider mechanic, but it's abstracted out.

Any ideas or recommendations? I'll also take board games i can run on Vassal.

We've had the Dev Self Promotion Thread open for 18 days, in that time we've removed a lot of posts that were self promotion and also removed some in error. We're trying to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape in game development that has amazing potential for creativity but also slop and abuse. The current system is not the best, we recognize that, and we are striving to make it better.

The question, are we being too tight fisted with the Sub, or are we on the proper path? How do we foster a place where genuine devs can share exciting and interesting updates without overwhelming the mods with accounting of post rates and dates? In years past it wasn't uncommon to go weeks if not months between any dev updates. Now we see 3-6 self promotion posts daily.

Reddit gives us a few tools as mods to look at what a user posts and determine the type of posts we see from them. Here are a few examples of what we typically see. The 1st is from a removed post, the 2nd from a thread that was good content.

At a certain point we're going by feel, or like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in regards to pornography, "I know it when I see it." Which is unfortunate and not a professional way for us to conduct this sub.

In 3 months we'll see more, better polished, more playable, and more interesting Computer Wargames that were made by more skilled and prudent devs. It will be indistinguishable from quality made software and that is great! We want to make sure we have a place for the next Grigsby or Tiller or Reijkerz to show off what they have made.

One suggestion we had was a "Self Promotion Day" that happens every 2 weeks. On that day we let it all in and let the upvotes (or downvotes) decide. Ultimately we want a clear guideline that doesn't require constant mod interaction.

So please share your thoughts.

They're all dead men.

Following a Soviet breakthrough the German commander authorized the release of the Marder 3 kept in reserve during the battle. The Marder arrived just on time and put up a stubborn fight but was ultimately overcome by Soviet AT rifles, where its crew was isolated and picked off.

The Pak-38, bypassed by the advancing Soviet troops, springs up in ambush to fire HE rounds at the back of the Soviet formation which you can see in the second picture. Meanwhile the third is from the perspective of the mansion overlooking the assault.

I’m tied to a MAC OS desktop (not literally) and I’m limited to war games I can play. HoI4, The Troop and SGS series of games fill the void but would love to hear some good recommendations of others out there.

Would be interested to hear what demos people have been trying out during Steam Next Fest.

Steel Company - Absolutely loving this. As someone who still plays Battle Academy regularly this feels more complex but still easy to access. Lots of scenarios and will be picking up straight away!

Theatre of War: Rearmed - Loved these games when I was young but the gameplay doesn’t really hold up. Think you can scratch the same itch with Gates of Hell. Might pick up during a sale for the Korean missions though.

Veterans: Napoleonic Wars - I’m sure work has gone into this so don’t want to be too harsh. I can get over AI usage in games but what I can’t get over is less unit command options than Empire Total War and unit pathing that doesn’t work. Avoid.

Mine is:

1- John Tiller Campaign Series (East Front 2, West Front 2, Rising Sun, Middle East, Vietnam)

2- Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

3- Second Front

4- Steel Panthers (THE DOS VERSION. I WISH SNEG WOULD MAKE A MODERN VERSION OF IT)

5- Graviteam Tactics: Mius-Front

6- Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far

7- Hearts of Iron IV

8- The Operational Art of War IV

9- Unity of Command II

10- Command Ops 2

From the Steam Page: "Steel Company is a tactical-scale wargame covering all major theaters and powers of WWII, with hundreds of units and detailed modeling of weapons and equipment. It features advanced tactical AI for single player, online multiplayer (PvP and co-op), a powerful scenario editor, and mod support."

Demo has 19 scenarios + 3 tutorials + mission editor

Game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5036770/Steel_Company/

I've been building free mod tools for R.U.S.E. (R.U.S.E. 2.0), and this is the newest: **Ruse Terraform**.

Pick a real place, get a playable R.U.S.E. map of it. It pulls in the real coastline, fields, hedgerows, woods, roads, streams and villages from open map data and builds it all out of the game's own ground, trees and buildings. Units drive the real roads and go round the real buildings.

This one is Utah Beach, 10 x 10 km. Pictures 1-3: the real place from the air next to our map, today and in the 1950s. 4-6: in game. 7: how big it is next to the game's own D-Day map, inside an 80 km map we got loading and playing.

Still polishing texture edges, houses up close and cover in the woods. Next: the real places behind the game's own maps. Arnhem, Bastogne, Monte Cassino.

Free, needs R.U.S.E. on Steam, and never touches your install.

Download: https://github.com/sneadtristen6/R.U.S.E-2.0-Project/releases

Updates on the Ruse Pro Mods Discord: https://discord.gg/MsxnpmDzE

Basically any game that has a good grasp on commanding a frontline, Hoi3 as a good example of strategic level and Decisive Campaigns as an example of operational. Real time or turn based it doesn't matter.

Hello. I would like to play some turn based strategies where not only do you have to care of combat but also producing supplies, transporting them to fronts, manage logistics etc. Modern wars are won economically.

Please recommend some good titles :)

Hello everyone,

This might be a bit weird to ask, but I want to get into tabletop wargames. It's something I have been thinking for a while, I just see those games by GMT or by DVG and they are so appealing to me, yet I have never played one of them. I figured out I might as well start with a PC game that could resemble the experience, so I can avoid buying stuff I don't even understand how to play...

So far I researched and saw a lot of people recommending a game called "Memoir 44". What I did perhaps is a bit weird, but since I had Tabletop Simulator in my steam library, I found a workshop mod to play it. But damm... what a hassle to lay each individual piece on every part of the map. While also looking at tutorials on the phone...

So I came here to ask you: Is there any game that's like a port of a tabletop wargame but that has a good tutorial to get into it? Regarding eras I'm mostly interested in the stuff happening from the thirty years war up to nowadays pretty much hehe, and would even give a try to something more ancient if you guys say the ultimate experience to learn if tabletop gaming is for me is in a game of those ancient eras, so it's not a problem.

So yeah, is there any pc game that ports or resembles a tabletop wargame that you would recommend to a complete newbie? Thanks in advance

I wanna hear it. 🔥💎

I'm going to tell you something about a first person shooter game called FEAR.

Among other things, FEAR was famous in its day for having one of the best enemy AI in videogames. When a firefight was going on, the enemy was constantly doing things - flanking you, flushing you out of cover with grenades, that sort of thing.

But the secret was, FEAR's AI wasn't actually that much better than any other FPS of its era. What it was actually doing was telegraphing its moves. The enemy soldiers never shut up, constantly yelling out the next strategy they were going to attempt. Even if you couldn't see them, you could hear them telling each other to go around, or to provide covering fire.

This had the effect of making everything they did feel intentional. It wasn't random, there was a plan behind it. You knew there was a plan because you'd heard voices talking about it. Even if the actual behavior wasn't that different from other FPS enemies, it felt different.

Now, to the subject of the Wargame.

It's kind of hard to TELL how good an enemy AI is in a wargame, because of the famous Fog of War. You glimpse an unknown, unidentified unit that has scooted into a visible hex for a moment, then disappeared back into the Fog. Was that a completely random and meaningless movement, like air bubbles in boiling water, or part of some deep and intricate plan that you must plan around?

It's hard to tell, really.

And the Fog of War kind of works against the FEAR solution, right? You CAN'T have the enemy player broadcast his intentions in order to give the battle you two are fighting a more coherent narrative. Because the entire premise of most computer wargames, with almost the solitary exception of Unity of Command 1, is that you have no idea where any unit you're not actually rubbing yourself against is or what it's doing.

But that can also make it feel like those units are just spawning into existence when convenient.

I guess my question is, is there a way to square this circle? A way to communicate to the player that there is a grand plan he's playing against?

Hey everyone! I’m new to Wargame Design Studio and I’m really interested in Jutland since I’m a huge WWI naval history fan.

Would you recommend buying it as a beginner, or is the learning curve too steep? I’m looking for something I can learn fairly quickly without spending hours reading manuals.

Is it worth the $40? Thanks!

I'm interested in playing smaller actions, Java Sea, Falklands, Bismarck etc.

A video edit I made of an old game called Wulfram.

The community is bringing it back, and we already have some awesome gameplay from one of our first play-tests.

Would love some input!

I like the modeling of units although it's very limited in that there are 4 "doctrines": Krauts, Japs, Russkies and Dogfaces.

The game is rife with ridiculous inconsistencies, but at 24x the aesthetic papers over the nonsense.

It's made by the same people who make 1914 and WW3. I'm looking for something like that but am happy for something that doesn't involve the resource management

Anyone else play it?

I saw it mentioned in the most recent WDS newsletter. I live in New England and I’m surrounded by colonial history, so I’m intrigued.

What are your experiences with the game?

I recently stumbled upon Unity of Command 2 while looking for a WWII strategy game with more depth, especially when it comes to logistics and supply lines.

I really like how much attention the developers seem to put into historical accuracy, from the maps and terrain to recreating real operations like Barbarossa.

I was wondering how Panzer Corps 2 compares. It seems to be a much more popular game, but does it offer a similar level of depth when it comes to supply management, realistic terrain, and historical units?

Thanks in advance