[StarSlayer]

Ooooooo

Amphib?  Yay Amphib!

[Kobrar44]

I haven't even purchased the European Escalation yet and they throw out another Wargame. Thess Wargames will eventually cost me fortune.

[Dragon]

I'm having good fun with EE right now. Will probably buy Airland Battle when this comes out, things usually get a lot cheaper after the sequel's out.

[General Battuta]

I played the **** out of WALB and in fact I believe WALBttuta was at one point one of the top 100 players in the world or some ****. These are fantastic games, with the freshest, most disruptive take on real-time strategy since Homeworld. For maybe the first time in PC real-time strategy, you don't have to be fast, just smart: you can win a competitive match with twenty actions a minute.

Red Dragon looks spectacular. If they keep marking smart decisions (removing destruction in favor of conquest as the default competitive mode) and awesome decisions (SHIPS  ) as well as packing their unit list with badass **** like the Eurofighter and Udaloy, there's no way this game won't own. And Eugen is really pretty snappy about patches: they hammered down all of WALB's rough edges over the course of its lifetime.

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Wargame is a game in which you create a 'deck' by selecting units from a massive pool of Cold War hardware. This is your team lineup for the match, and it's practically a game in itself - you can restrict your deck by national affiliation or era in order to get more deckbuilding points.

You then select one of your decks and hurl it into the fight: battalion-level combat across a massive map that'll see you zooming in to micro commando teams in individual town or zooming out to look over the whole map and drop airstrikes on enemy tank columns. Recon, anti-air networks, and anti-tank teams are key components of your strategy, and unlike artillery in most games, Wargame field pieces actually can fire across the whole map.

This game is pretty much only worth playing multiplayer, as the single player ranges from mediocre to ****. (This might change with Red Dragon, who knows.) It seems really intimidating when you start, because there are a BILLION units with names like FlaRak (mandatory comms protocol: refer to this unit as FlaRak Obama) or Fagot or MIG-21Bis, and at first it'll feel like you have no idea where all these anti-tank missiles are coming from.

But the game's actually pretty easy to learn, and quite easy to get good at to the point where you'll be decent in competitive multi. I might host some Mumble sessions if people want to get on and play together. Alternately I can post some Pro Battuta Tips here so everyone can get in touch with their inner xx 420 MLG PRO WEEDROMMEL 420 xx

[General Battuta]

For those looking to get into the series, there is no reason to buy European Escalation with ALB available, and there will probably be no reason to get ALB once Red Dragon is out.

[Dragon]

No reason except to try it out, that is, since you can get EE for about 5 Euro if you're lucky with Steam. That's why I'm waiting for ALB release till Red Dragon is out. I'm cheap and I don't really play multiplayer.

[General Battuta]

Let me highlight then that these games range from mediocre to garbage in SP and you should not buy it for the campaign.

[StarSlayer]

I need to bite the bullet and say good bye to EE and commit to ALB before I'm two versions obsolete

[NGTM-1R]

Batts is pretty much right about the SP play, at least for campaign. It's not quite so bad in skirmish. I should also note that they're pretty good at (sadly) patching my favorite tactics because they're broken, like my Corsair-based Naplam decks.

Still, for a few shining weeks it was all about the burn.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Let me highlight then that these games range from mediocre to garbage in SP and you should not buy it for the campaign.

Whelp, there goes my interest in that pretty, pretty trailer...

[General Battuta]

The MP is easy to pick up, fun to play with friends, and crowded with players who are literally easier to beat than the AI bots. But if it's not your show, so be it.

[AdmiralRalwood]

The MP is easy to pick up, fun to play with friends, and crowded with players who are literally easier to beat than the AI bots. But if it's not your show, so be it.

I'm really not a multiplayer guy at heart. Stomping around in MW4:Mercs lately is literally more multiplayer than I've done in the previous ten years combined.

Well, except for a brief stint of Shattered Horizon; when someone gifts you a game about astronauts shooting at each other with Newtonian physics, you play that **** even if the only "singleplayer" is bots.

...And I suppose I've hosted Terraria and Minecraft worlds now and then.

Okay, so maybe I play more multiplayer than I think I do, but none of it is RTSs.

[Grizzly]

The MP is easy to pick up, fun to play with friends, and crowded with players who are literally easier to beat than the AI bots. But if it's not your show, so be it.

I'm really not a multiplayer guy at heart. Stomping around in MW4:Mercs lately is literally more multiplayer than I've done in the previous ten years combined.

Well, except for a brief stint of Shattered Horizon; when someone gifts you a game about astronauts shooting at each other with Newtonian physics, you play that **** even if the only "singleplayer" is bots.

...And I suppose I've hosted Terraria and Minecraft worlds now and then.

Okay, so maybe I play more multiplayer than I think I do, but none of it is RTSs.

Wargame would be an ideal place to start

Hmm. I don't really get why Batutta disses the campaign that much. I can undertand that the EE campaign is not all that good (Although it's alternative history things were actually rather fun), but the ALB campaign is basically dynamic skirmishes. It's miles better IMO.

[General Battuta]

The ALB campaign would be worth playing if they switched all the destruction gametypes to conquest. As it stands it's worse than EE's.

[StarSlayer]

Some beta game play footage.

[General Battuta]

I saw a streamer having a huge naval battle and the CIWS are really BZZZZZZZZZZT and ships spew flares everywhere. Looks like BP2 Act 4, it's spectacular.

[General Battuta]

[StarSlayer]

Don't take your ships to towns son, leave your ships at home.

[General Battuta]

Just a reminder that this game owns

[ssmit132]

I've sent a link to my mates I usually play multiplayer games with - we have a big enough backlog as it is but it does look impressive and I wouldn't mind trying it.

I might host some Mumble sessions if people want to get on and play together.

And if I did get it I wouldn't mind playing with other HLPers as well, but it might be tricky for me to coordinate with everyone due to being in Australia...