X-COM Troops deployment in UFO-likes, original and recent ones

[Darth Canoli]

Playing UFO Extraterrestrials made me realize something about troops deployment, it sucks.
It never bothered me much in UFO, nor in Apocalypse, not even in the After- series.
In extraterrestrials, is really sucks though (lack of UT on rookies mostly) and when looking back, i realize this was always an issue, just not such a big one.

It's starting to get better and better as you train your troops but it's still an issue after a couple of month, i'm gessing it takes one year trained troops have a comfortable deployment turn.
Even the mobile garbage does it wrong, Chimera breach gimmick is tiresome too, worst, knowing the bonuses in advance is probably convenient for the dumb masses but it's pure decline too, it's just a missed opportunity to plan the strategy ahead with the intel you have and then deal with the consequences.

Something in between the dumbed down breach system and the deployment in a shoebox would be amazing.

• Your troops are deployed from a transport, even in the sixties, you could fire weapons from an helicopter, so
  
• First, we should have multiple deployment areas as options (i mean you pick one) and some intel about the sentinel or the quantity of troops in the area.
• If there is some aliens on the landing site, someone on the helicopter should have the opportunity to fire at it, and possibly assign someone to that role for each mission.
• It would be a great opportunity for a FPS mini-game and the more aliens you shoot before landing, the less there is left in the landing area.
• Also, about the different landing zones, you could have the option to land on the safest one or get directly into action, depending on the quality of your troops and the kind of mission.
• And why not having the option to land a bit off site, preparing two assault teams getting there on foot to take the alien by surprise, could also be influenced by soldiers (or commander) combat & non-combat skills.

Any thoughts about the deployments systems ? Ideas you'd like to share ?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

"you ain't from this planet, are you vincent?". it's been since psx's unlock to piracy that games have become more and more and more and more dumbed down, almost 25 years of catering to the stupider and stupider, and now you want more complex games?

 

[Galdred]

I was thinking the same. I have not tried chimera yet, but it always bothered me that:
The helicopter/thunderhawk/dropship pilot would find it clever to land in the middle of the opponents.
There is a reason drop zones are usualy further away from the field of fires of your targets (there are notable exceptions indeed, like the assault en Eben Emael where gliders tried to land directly on the fort, but it was because most of the defences were directed outwards actually).


I always found the skyranger exit immersion somewhat breaking in X-COM.
As you said, the transport vehicle should at least have a gun (and proper smoke screen) if it intends on landing in the middle of the opponents.
That said, it made me understand my miniature Space Marines must have felt when I disembarked them in the middle of the opposing deployment area to take out an objective or an enemy battery.

Something in between the dumbed down breach system and the deployment in a shoebox would be amazing.

• Your troops are deployed from a transport, even in the sixties, you could fire weapons from an helicopter, so
  
• First, we should have multiple deployment areas as options (i mean you pick one) and some intel about the sentinel or the quantity of troops in the area.
• If there is some aliens on the landing site, someone on the helicopter should have the opportunity to fire at it, and possibly assign someone to that role for each mission.
• It would be a great opportunity for a FPS mini-game and the more aliens you shoot before landing, the less there is left in the landing area.
• Also, about the different landing zones, you could have the option to land on the safest one or get directly into action, depending on the quality of your troops and the kind of mission.
• And why not having the option to land a bit off site, preparing two assault teams getting there on foot to take the alien by surprise, could also be influenced by soldiers (or commander) combat & non-combat skills.

Any thoughts about the deployments systems ? Ideas you'd like to share ?

I think Steel Panthers did it best acutally (even though the scale was much larger).
You could order preliminary artillery barrage on the opposing positions (without knowing where exactly the units would be deployed) before the battle (and pre set some locations for faster and more accurate artillery responses).
I would like support to work this way (rather than with a fps minigame!).
Didn't Phantom Doctrine have something similar actually?

Having different deployment options seems the best to me:
Either have several entry points ala Chimera Squad, but with less gamey effects (ie, if you start in the sewers, you would have less enemies to face initially, but it would take much longer to reach the objective than if you land on the roof).
Being able to assign soldiers to each area could also make the choice more interesting.

Having some options open up through preliminary work (intel, previous missions, on top of commander/troop quality...) is also a great idea.

Regarding the choice of the LZ, it should be a risk vs reward thing I think:
Landing further away could give you less time to complete the mission (or have more enemy present if you get spotted during the approach?)
Landing right in the middle of the opponents should give some benefits to make up for putting your squad in a miserable position.

 

[ValeVelKal]

• It would be a great opportunity for a FPS mini-game and the more aliens you shoot before landing, the less there is left in the landing area.

That's the most terrible idea I have read in a while on this site, in addition to showing a total misunderstanding of the reality of actually making a game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

That's the most terrible idea I have read in a while on this site, in addition to showing a total misunderstanding of the reality of actually making a game.

I want to shoot things so bad man i can't think straight.

Also, in spite of what i wrote, what i meant is more like a "shooting gallery" mini game, maybe in between the basic "duck hunt" and the more evolved 90's arcade shooting games.
Nothing like KotOR's shooting game though, i really dislike this one, it always felt like a chore, like a pixel hunting shooting mini-game.

 

[Galdred]

That's the most terrible idea I have read in a while on this site, in addition to showing a total misunderstanding of the reality of actually making a game.

I want to shoot things so bad man i can't think straight.

Also, in spite of what i wrote, what i meant is more like a "shooting gallery" mini game, maybe in between the basic "duck hunt" and the more evolved 90's arcade shooting games.
Nothing like KotOR's shooting game though, i really dislike this one, it always felt like a chore, like a pixel hunting shooting mini-game.

Wouldn't you be best served by a tactical shooter ?
I sometimes also have an itch to play an hybrid of tactical combat and killing things myself:

Star Wars: Republic Commando is super old, but it was nice. Same for SWAT 4 (and you kind of can approach the missions the way you want). Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare seems to be about that, but I am not sure about the tactical part. Arma 3 could also work, but I am not sure about its SP suitability (I only really played Operation Flashpoint).
Tank Sims don't really exist anymore, but some old ones also combined platoon command and shooting things with a big gun (Panzer Elite, Steel Beast, but the current version costs an arm and a leg, and requires an USB dongle).
You also have a few options to PewPew in a spaceship while ordering your fleet around (Starshatter, Void Destroyer 2, and Starsector. Probably X3-X4 too, but I never liked the combat).
Or RTS/FPS hybrids like BattleZone (or the Carrier Command remake, but this one was really buggy).

 

[ValeVelKal]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

 

[Galdred]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

My memory is fuzzy, but you can toggle paltoon deployment with one button, and deploy all units together. You still need to find one of them to select, though.

Regarding Final Liberation, I wish more games would let you fight with your APC (Fallout Tactics is one of the only Squad Games I know. Chaos Gate did that too, but the vehicles took an absurdly high number of tiles, making almost all terrain impassible, except for Dreadnought and landspeeder).

 

[Darth Canoli]

I was thinking the same. I have not tried chimera yet, but it always bothered me that:
The helicopter/thunderhawk/dropship pilot would find it clever to land in the middle of the opponents.
There is a reason drop zones are usualy further away from the field of fires of your targets (there are notable exceptions indeed, like the assault en Eben Emael where gliders tried to land directly on the fort, but it was because most of the defences were directed outwards actually).

I always found the skyranger exit immersion somewhat breaking in X-COM.
As you said, the transport vehicle should at least have a gun (and proper smoke screen) if it intends on landing in the middle of the opponents.
That said, it made me understand my miniature Space Marines must have felt when I disembarked them in the middle of the opposing deployment area to take out an objective or an enemy battery.

I think Steel Panthers did it best acutally (even though the scale was much larger).
You could order preliminary artillery barrage on the opposing positions (without knowing where exactly the units would be deployed) before the battle (and pre set some locations for faster and more accurate artillery responses).
I would like support to work this way (rather than with a fps minigame!).
Didn't Phantom Doctrine have something similar actually?

Having different deployment options seems the best to me:
Either have several entry points ala Chimera Squad, but with less gamey effects (ie, if you start in the sewers, you would have less enemies to face initially, but it would take much longer to reach the objective than if you land on the roof).
Being able to assign soldiers to each area could also make the choice more interesting.

Having some options open up through preliminary work (intel, previous missions, on top of commander/troop quality...) is also a great idea.

Regarding the choice of the LZ, it should be a risk vs reward thing I think:
Landing further away could give you less time to complete the mission (or have more enemy present if you get spotted during the approach?)
Landing right in the middle of the opponents should give some benefits to make up for putting your squad in a miserable position.

Interesting, never played steel panther nor any panzer general and the likes, besides Fantasy General, because dragons and centaurs vs tanks and helis is a no brainer for me.
Didn't play Phantom doctrine either, i'm not a big infiltration fan, the settings isn't very appealing and the negative feedback was the last straw.

Artillery fire is interesting and might work quite well as long as the enemy is out-numbering our forces by far, so either your strategy works or you're screwed.
On the other hand, a "shooting" mini-game well done would break the monotony.

Oh, wait, we agree on almost everything, it's no fun to argue with you. ;-)

 

[ValeVelKal]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

My memory is fuzzy, but you can toggle paltoon deployment with one button, and deploy all units together. You still need to find one of them to select, though.

Regarding Final Liberation, I wish more games would let you fight with your APC (Fallout Tactics is one of the only Squad Games I know. Chaos Gate did that too, but the vehicles took an absurdly high number of tiles, making almost all terrain impassible, except for Dreadnought and landspeeder).

Wait - you managed to move the landspeeder in Chaos Gate ? ^^.
While the APC is fighting with you, in Chaos Gate, people don't fight FROM the APC (depending on the APC, in real life, the more dudes in the APC the more bullets gets out). Fallout Tactics is unique in that regard, too bad you can only use the APC in one mission and the tank in another.

It is a bit above in scale than Squad Tactics, but Theater of War was also realistic in this regard if I remember well. Of couse, as per history, one wrong hit on the APC and the whole squad is a write-off.

I think the game that represents the best infantry - APC cooperation is the Wargame serie (eg Wargame Red Dragon). You can have a perfect offensive where you start by smoking the access point, then drive the APC toward the target while the artillery shells it for shock effect, unmount some 100 meters from the target, then assault with the cover fire from the APC/IFV, and then lose everyone - 40 men + 4 APC and their crew - because the other side sends a Yak-38M.

 

[Galdred]

Wait - you managed to move the landspeeder in Chaos Gate ? ^^.
While the APC is fighting with you, in Chaos Gate, people don't fight FROM the APC (depending on the APC, in real life, the more dudes in the APC the more bullets gets out). Fallout Tactics is unique in that regard, too bad you can only use the APC in one mission and the tank in another.

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/galaxy/6777/cgfaq.html

My memory may be mixing the LS from Final Liberation and the one from Chaos Gate, but I think it worked:

2 - How do I move the Landspeeder, it keeps getting stuck?

It has the same basic principle to moving as other characters; being a Landspeeder it can change height, using the 'A' and 'Z' Keys you can move the cursor up a level and down a level, put it up high enough so it allows you to move (or higher if you wish) and you've got it.
(submitted by sean)

 

[Dayyālu]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

And then you realize Final Liberation dinamically changes enemy set-up based on the troops you send in, resulting in Titan spam being more optimal (at least it ain't as bad as Armageddon and I always kept larping with Infantry).

In Chaos Gate 50% of the vehicles are sort of useless, the Predator has decent firepower but it usually gets sniped and the Dread is too slow to be properly employed in the mission you get it. In Tactics at least vehicles are hilarious, doing psycho runs with the buggy and a rocket launcher co-pilot was awesome.

Also Wargame made transports essential because size. Walking a map on foot was 30+ minutes. Gosh how I miss Wargame.

 

[ValeVelKal]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

And then you realize Final Liberation dinamically changes enemy set-up based on the troops you send in, resulting in Titan spam being more optimal (at least it ain't as bad as Armageddon and I always kept larping with Infantry).

In Chaos Gate 50% of the vehicles are sort of useless, the Predator has decent firepower but it usually gets sniped and the Dread is too slow to be properly employed in the mission you get it. In Tactics at least vehicles are hilarious, doing psycho runs with the buggy and a rocket launcher co-pilot was awesome.

Also Wargame made transports essential because size. Walking a map on foot was 30+ minutes. Gosh how I miss Wargame.

I am actually finishing (hopefully) Final Liberation for the first time - Ironmaning it pretty well so far though I lost two groups so far and they don't seem infinite. I am actually impressed on how all vehicles & units on the Empire side are useful, though some (like the light guns that look like WW2 PaK) stopped being useful now. Sure, the foot infantry is useless, but it is dirt cheap so an interesting way to complete an army. I even used with some success the cavalry they give you at some point for melee.

I also finished Chaos Gate for the first time some 3 weeks ago - * almost * IronMan (don't spawn Terminators on me when I am moving the last unit in the last mission of the game and expect me to consider this fair + some early failing in random missions when I did not understand that "blind" grenades = smoke grenades and not flash grenades)

 

[Dayyālu]

I am actually finishing (hopefully) Final Liberation for the first time - Ironmaning it pretty well so far though I lost two groups so far and they don't seem infinite. I am actually impressed on how all vehicles & units on the Empire side are useful, though some (like the light guns that look like WW2 PaK) stopped being useful now. Sure, the foot infantry is useless, but it is dirt cheap so an interesting way to complete an army. I even used with some success the cavalry they give you at some point for melee.

Ork units are very interesting in FL for a very simple reason: they don't play by your rules. You have already met the infinite shielding units and the random "kill everything I hit" missiles. Artillery spam is the safe way to play FL, but it's also essentially boring and Titans are amusing.

I also finished Chaos Gate for the first time some 3 weeks ago - * almost * IronMan (don't spawn Terminators on me when I am moving the last unit in the last mission of the game and expect me to consider this fair + some early failing in random missions when I did not understand that "blind" grenades = smoke grenades and not flash grenades)

Ironmanning Chaos Gate is a proposition I would not entertain nowadays. I have finished it several times (dunnow why, sucker for it I guess) and never ironmanned it, mostly because the structure of Chaos Gate isn't lenient on losses and some enemies are essentially broken (Reaper Autocannon termies). My hat to ye.

Also Vortex mis-aiming has caused more losses in my playthroughs than all enemies put together.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I always thought it was less "The Skyranger lands in the middle of the enemies" and more "The enemies hide when your Skyranger is detected, then engage in ambush of your LZ."

But yeah, you do have some good points.

Enviado de meu moto e5 play usando o Tapatalk

 

[laclongquan]

Orbital Drops paratroopers' landing.

Your troops appear on the battlemap in a random deployment, since who could control landing placement 100%? That's what vehicle drop is for.

Anyway, your troops land on hot zones. For maximum survivalability and quest completion they would need to gather in one place and move (because the hot zone is crawling with hostiles). But before that can happen, each solo soldier has to survive first.

The random element would kill plenty of troops in a believable manner and raise difficulty naturally without suspicion. Unless you send in a team full of super veterans.

 

[Galdred]

In any case, I am playing Epic 40 000 : FInal Liberation, and the opportunity to deploy your troops before battle (and choose if your footmen are IN the vehicles or not) is golden, though I wish it put the groups together rather than spreading them around the deployment zone so I don't have a "Where is Waldo my 4th Infantry squad" mini-game before every battle.

And then you realize Final Liberation dinamically changes enemy set-up based on the troops you send in, resulting in Titan spam being more optimal (at least it ain't as bad as Armageddon and I always kept larping with Infantry).

In Chaos Gate 50% of the vehicles are sort of useless, the Predator has decent firepower but it usually gets sniped and the Dread is too slow to be properly employed in the mission you get it. In Tactics at least vehicles are hilarious, doing psycho runs with the buggy and a rocket launcher co-pilot was awesome.

Also Wargame made transports essential because size. Walking a map on foot was 30+ minutes. Gosh how I miss Wargame.

Titan spam is also optimal because of the mix of rules they used :
They basically used Steel Panthers altered rules about penetration and armor, with suppression, and superheavy hit points from Epic: 40K, and close combat from Space Marines 2nd edition
So Titans combine: invulnerability to the Orc Leva cannon (which cannot be said for the poor Leviathan which can be OKOH by it), a very high armor, and tons of hitpoints (that is, the best of the 3 rulesets combined).
Very few things can engage the heavier one reliably in melee, and the AI will be reluctant to send masses of infantry against it (also, it lacks durable infantry to do so).

But I think the major advantage of Titans is that they only take a single slot:

So with unlimited funding (which is kind of your situation in the campaign), there is nothing that is relatively as powerful as a Titan that can fit in one of these unit slots.
In the epic: Space Marines 2nd edition TT, you had to take 3 Superheavy against a single Titan (3 slots), or a full armored company (also 3 slots + 1 HQ tank). So it is basically the best value you can bring per slot to a regiment.
Also, Imperial Titans outclass the Ork ones most of the time (they can get super lucky on their forcefeld rolls, and have ammunitions that can obliterate all of your shields at once iirc).

I think LARPing that you cannot get more than a single titan per company works better to keep the game challenging.

Regarding vehicles in Chaos Gate, it is true that they weren't great: they could explose in a single hit (no hitpoint), didn't get XP, and got stuck a lot.
The dreadnought was still quite powerful, though.


ValeVelKal Regarding finding your units, the easiest way to do so for me was to toggle group deployment to get them somewhere together, then redispatch them where I needed:

Regarding Fallout Tactics, you are right about vehicles having very few missions. You could use them in "random skirmishes" or whatever it was, but not on preset missions.
Soldiers of Anarchy had quite a few vehicles for a squad based game, and that was pretty cool, but it was very tedious to try to get optimal results in each mission (by flaming the crew of each vehicle to capture it).

Back to topic, which squad level game have intereseting pre-mission option?
I was thinking about the best way to do so for my game a few weeks ago, before getting distracted by more pressing issues.

The latest XCOM 2 missions have something similar with Intelligence. I think Long War 2 also does have some kind of pre mission preparation(but no option to choose how to use it. It only lets you deploy more people).
And as Darth Canoli pointed out, Chimera does too.
I liked the pre battle COYA parts in King Arthur, but sometimes, they could feel a bit "arbitrary" (in that you could not easily map choices to battle outcomes), but this, and ways to choose deployment areas, and open them (by infiltrating the target beforehand, or using "assets" like troops or existing favors to modify a mission was the way we planned to roll at the time.

Something like:
- spawn the mission (or have the player initiate it)
- spend intelligence and resources to open deployment and pre mission options (like slowing down reinforcements, having opponents start with a debuf, getting your own reinforcements or increasing available rewards...)
- assign characters to mission starting areas

 

[Darth Canoli]

Something like:
- spawn the mission (or have the player initiate it)
- spend intelligence and resources to open deployment and pre mission options (like slowing down reinforcements, having opponents start with a debuf, getting your own reinforcements or increasing available rewards...)
- assign characters to mission starting areas

Instead of spending ressources, it could be assigning one soldier to plan the operation and depending on his classes & skills, it opens different options like a scout having more infos about troops whereabouts, an artillerist providing support strikes, a sniper taking out some of the guards ...
That soldier is unavailable for the mission of course and his level/skills influence the outcome (so you don't use a rookie for that purpose).

I'd have to work with your gameplay but sniper/archer works, artillerist/mage too.
An alternative is that optional assignment could open new spawn area(s) for one or more soldiers, like a nice relatively safe shooting spot for an archer or a side entrance for the whole team or a part of it.

 

[Galdred]

Something like:
- spawn the mission (or have the player initiate it)
- spend intelligence and resources to open deployment and pre mission options (like slowing down reinforcements, having opponents start with a debuf, getting your own reinforcements or increasing available rewards...)
- assign characters to mission starting areas

Instead of spending ressources, it could be assigning one soldier to plan the operation and depending on his classes & skills, it opens different options like a scout having more infos about troops whereabouts, an artillerist providing support strikes, a sniper taking out some of the guards ...
That soldier is unavailable for the mission of course and his level/skills influence the outcome (so you don't use a rookie for that purpose).

I'd have to work with your gameplay but sniper/archer works, artillerist/mage too.
An alternative is that optional assignment could open new spawn area(s) for one or more soldiers, like a nice relatively safe shooting spot for an archer or a side entrance for the whole team or a part of it.

Actually, that is very close from the way we had designed our first missions :

At first, we wanted to have one party dedicated to mission support with its skills determining how they would perform at some tasks (delaying reinforcements, extending time limit, unlocking some areas, ...), and then, we decided that it would work better with an UI to assign individual characters to some tasks while others would be fighting in the mission.

But the problem is that it is always hard to balance combat skills with non combat skills. In PnP RPG it ends up with some "usability mules", or characters that can all do combat, and a single non combat skill, so that by combining all characters together, you get the equivalent of a reasonably balanced human, able to persuade other, bluff, and repair stuff.

One solution we had in mind would be to have each "main skill" and perks give some bonus to a secondary skill (for instance, leadership perks would also give a bonus to persuasion).

Also, resources would not be only gold and mana, but some mobilisable assets, like spy networks and armies (that would not disappear on use).

So there will be a lot of testing to do to find something that clicks well once the mission preparation screen is in place (because there will be the same problem with base support function, like crafting, information gathering, and studying scrolls and tomes).

 

[Darth Canoli]

Interesting, i think assigning a whole support team, however logical it is, was the wrong approach because it implies you'd have a non-combat team.

If you just use one guy, first, there is a choice to make, that's the important part, having different options on how to approach the mission preparation and picking one.
Secondly, it's just one guy so by doing a rotation, you can keep your whole team on a similar experience level and nos wasting a lot of xp.

Still, your system seems fine, i was a bit afraid when you said spending resources but if they're not consumable, it's already better, still, there has to be a choice and/or a counterpart otherwise, it's just a "i win!" button.

Edit : Also, useful field skills being used for that team support part is mandatory if the soldiers are to be used on the field too. Except if xp/skills gained on level up are split into groups like in Wizardry and AoD ...

 

[Galdred]

Interesting, i think assigning a whole support team, however logical it is, was the wrong approach because it implies you'd have a non-combat team.

If you just use one guy, first, there is a choice to make, that's the important part, having different options on how to approach the mission preparation and picking one.
Secondly, it's just one guy so by doing a rotation, you can keep your whole team on a similar experience level and nos wasting a lot of xp.

Still, your system seems fine, i was a bit afraid when you said spending resources but if they're not consumable, it's already better, still, there has to be a choice and/or a counterpart otherwise, it's just a "i win!" button.

Edit : Also, useful field skills being used for that team support part is mandatory if the soldiers are to be used on the field too. Except if xp/skills gained on level up are split into groups like in Wizardry and AoD ...

Regarding assigned resources, that is not true:
Having an asset unavailable for a length of time is not just a "I win" button:
If you move one army to a remote location to support your adventurers, it cannot be used anywhere else until it gets redeployed.
Same for spies: If you have 3 spook teams, and assign one of them for several months to prepare a mission, you only have 2 more left for all the other tasks at hand.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

dragons and centaurs vs tanks

Slight OT, but that's pretty much the idea of Spellcross - The Last Battle.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Slight OT, but that's pretty much the idea of Spellcross - The Last Battle.

I meant i prefer tacticools featuring dragons and centaurs rather than tanks ...
So, this one does Dragons vs Tanks and we get to play the tanks ?

What the fuck ? I want to play the dragons!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

So, this one does Dragons vs Tanks and we get to play the tanks ?

If I remember correctly, yes.

 

[Galdred]

Interesting, never played steel panther nor any panzer general and the likes, besides Fantasy General, because dragons and centaurs vs tanks and helis is a no brainer for me.
Didn't play Phantom doctrine either, i'm not a big infiltration fan, the settings isn't very appealing and the negative feedback was the last straw.

Artillery fire is interesting and might work quite well as long as the enemy is out-numbering our forces by far, so either your strategy works or you're screwed.
On the other hand, a "shooting" mini-game well done would break the monotony.

Oh, wait, we agree on almost everything, it's no fun to argue with you. ;-)

We certainly don't agree about tanks vs dragons!

I love both, but one thing that I really like about modern warfare is that it plays very differently from medieval and fantasy warfare (there are almost no grand tactical game that does medieval warfare convincingly. Field of Glory somewhat does, but it has no sieges, and only covers early middle age atm. I suppose Pike and Shot: Japanese Edition also counts, but it is not the same middle age).

Tanks are kings in the offense in flat terrain, but have horrible spotting values, so you have to sacrifice meatbags or scouting verhicles to make sure your precious assets won't be ambushed.
Playing infantry vs Tanks in Steel Panthers early war was really cool. You had an effective range of 0 against the medium/heavy ones (you needed to charge into their own hex with AT grenades or demolition charges), which led to quite a few glorious actions, and many more horrible deaths.

Modern warfare is mostly trying to figure out where your opponents is hiding or where he will think you will be hiding, which is quite different from the way fantasy battles are usually depicted in games.