[Wargame: European Escalation] Play with the party

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wolfenswan
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[Wargame: European Escalation] Play with the party

Post by wolfenswan »

aka. the best game you never played.

Screenshots to be added; I'm currently travelling and on a low speed connection

Overview
W:EE is a lovely RTS, very reminiscent of RUSE (by the same developer) but dropping it's spiritual successors acardey feel and limited base building for tighter and more realistic combat (including the need of fuel and ammo supply) and a clever ressource system. The selection of units is huge, with the bulk being from the 70s and 80s (Leopard 1s, Hueys, Rise Pattons, T-55/-72, Mi-24s to name a few), though a few outdated (the iconic T-34 is probably the most notable) or "then-future" (Havoc) vehicles can be found as well.

Play with us
- Who's interested anyway?
- While a RPS W:EE steamgroup exits, it hasn't been used for a while. Depending on interest here we could either utilize this group for events and try to attract non-folk people or keep it "in-house" and use the Folk TS3.
- A game of W:EE can take a while, so I'd suggest we find a date where everyone has at least 2 hours to spare, giving us enough time to sort stuff out and get a nice game going.
- If you're really new, give the Official help forum a read. It's full of good advice and the community tends to be a rather pleasant bunch.

Why would I want it?
- lovely setting: Cold war style Warshaw and NATO forces duke it out all over the fields of central Germany and the Autobahn, to French meadows and Russian tundra.
- gameplay is tight. there's no unnecessary ballast, everything exists to support the combat
- everything's fun: While obviously in the ranked and public multiplayer some units and strategies appear more often than others, every unit the game provides can be deployed in a useful fashion, making a MP game against friends/comrades an enjoyable sandbox experience.
- unlocking done right: there's an unlock system and it's great. The starter decks provide you with a decent enough selection of stuff and after playing either a few MP games or a bit of the SP campaign you'll have enough stars to unlock a good amount of tasty choices. Also you can reset your unlocks any time you want, getting back all stars.
- great dev support: Eugen System have been tweaking and balancing the game since release, with a steady flow of free DLCs, introducing new game modes and as of recently another SP mini-campaign.

"Story"
Alternate history has always been about the little "ifs", attached to the critical decisions made throughout time: Hannibal not crossing the albs, Columbus taking a different route, the Hitler-Stalin pact prevailing and so and so forth. It's arguable wether the amount of "ifs" has risen over time but that their ramifications have increased in size is certainly not. Able Archer and the Cuban Missile Crisis mark moments where a good portion of the humanity would have nearly been dragged into another world war, this time aided by the blessings of the nuclear age. This is where Wargame: European Escalation begins.

Gameplay - Singeplayer
For me, W:EE had one of the most enjoyable SP campaigns of the last years. While it helps you ease into the game, it becomes pleasantly challenging rather soon with the CPU kicking ass more often than not. There's some accusation of the AI being a cheating, rage-inducing bastard of which I only found the latter to be true. The unfortunate lack of visual feedback in some critical areas really shows when playing against an opponent that knows all the nooks an crannies by programming.

Gameplay - Multiplayer
There's quite a selection of game modes though the most popular (and straightforward) is Destruction. Eliminating units of your opponent(s) gives you victorypoints: the more expensive the unit, the more victorypoints you get. Get enough victorypoints and you win. You can probably see where this is going: A T-80 for 150+ points is a beast on the battlefield but a sitting duck when flanked our without recon. Your 5 point conscripts can't the broad side of a barn but put them in a good ambush location and they'll probably return their investment 10 times over before they are removed. The ressource system mention earlier ties in this game mode very neatly: Spread over the map are "control zones" that can be occupied by your command vehicle ("CU"), giving you 1-5 points every four seconds, depending on how central the zone is. CUs don't come cheap though, usually they are about 400 and have only weak means of defense, if any. Again, it's a matter of how much risk you want to take. A CU deployed early will return it's investment sooner but until then you're 400 points in units behind your opponent. And if you loose it's more often a fatal blow than not.

Other game modes include a "defender vs. aggressor" variation of destruction (the aggressor having and edge in ressources), a domination game mode which drops the victorypoint system for map control and a "hoarder" mode, in which your resources double as victory points, making every purchase an important decision.

Closing comments
This isn't a review so don't treat it as such. I've enjoyed W:EE whenever I did play it with other RPS guys but unfortunately these times were far too few. I'm hoping that with this overview I'll be able to get more people interested in this gem and we'll be able to have the odd friendly session, trashing armor on the German Heide..

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StrangLove
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Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by StrangLove »

I'm there.

zitron
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Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 10:18 pm

Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by zitron »

Let me know when!

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Ferrard Carson
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Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by Ferrard Carson »

I've got the game, I love the game, and I am freakin' terrible at the game! :dance:

Sign me up again if we do another round of this. I gotta learn somehow.

~ Ferrard
"Take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turnin' of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' before she keels... makes her home."

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wolfenswan
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Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by wolfenswan »

Cool. Considering we need to get the 'merican into the boat. How about a Saturday?

Black Mamba
Posts: 335
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 12:11 pm

Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by Black Mamba »

I very well might get ahold of this too. And of course would be interested in getting my ass whooped by familiar faces.
Damn. Actually I'm getting it right now. I'm weak.

Toppometer
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Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2012 5:00 pm

Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by Toppometer »

Ferrard Carson wrote:I've got the game, I love the game, and I am freakin' terrible at the game! :dance:

Sign me up again if we do another round of this. I gotta learn somehow.

~ Ferrard

I also own this game, suck at it, and would like to join in...

Saturday would work for me but it depends on time of day.

Toppo

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SuperU
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Location: Perpetual state of motion

Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by SuperU »

I love W:EE and would love to get back into playing some MP on this game!

Black Mamba
Posts: 335
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 12:11 pm

Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by Black Mamba »

I suggest Toppo, Carson and myself against the world. Whoop(ed)-ass team.

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StrangLove
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Re: Play with the party: Wargame European Escalaton

Post by StrangLove »

I'm absolutely awful. Last time we played, I lost every unit except a pair of immobilized (out of fuel) chieftains inside Wolf's territory, which were rescued by a valiant squadron of Carson's trucks. Very good fun, I'd be up for a Saturday session of this.

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