Why is WW2 so popular for scenarios and PBEM?

[FJ88]

Just curious, I enjoy WW2 combat as much as the next person. But almost all of the TOAW scenarios and PBEM matches seem dedicated to WW2 scenarios.
I much prefer playing the modern combat scenarios and the more obscure the better.

It is a little dissapointing to see 65% of the TOAW III scenarios are WW2 era scenarios.

[nemo]

It's been argued, and with some valid points, that it's the period TOAW models the best, while it shows some shortcomings at both extremes of the century it's supposed to cover. And you can hardly find a five or six years span of time so full of battles and campaigns of varied styles and scope to simulate.

Overall, the sixty following years have been relatively peaceful - which is not a good thing design-wise.

[Boonierat]

Nemo has a point here, don't forget that TOAW was originally covering the period 1939-55 and was built with the type of warfare of that period in mind. My favorite era, the Vietnam War, is much harder to portray with TOAW for example.

[Dicke Bertha]

Then there is the kitten factor. No war ever has had such an amount and such used concentrations of armoured kittens.
Seriously, it must simply be the scale of WW2.

[Bloodstar]

Just curious, I enjoy WW2 combat as much as the next person. But almost all of the TOAW scenarios and PBEM matches seem dedicated to WW2 scenarios.
I much prefer playing the modern combat scenarios and the more obscure the better.

It is a little dissapointing to see 65% of the TOAW III scenarios are WW2 era scenarios.


WW2 is like Roman era or Napoleon era, romantic period of big wars and glory.
So much history in so few years.


Mario

[GJK]

Instead of starting a new thread, I'll ask this here since it's along the lines of "non-WW2 scenarios":

How does or how will the 19th Century weapons database work with TOAWIII? Is that something that is going to have to be updated by the community first or is there a way to import that work so that it can be used in scenarios? Of course the old "19th Mk 4.exe" file isn't going to work here. Anybody have any ideas?

[Menschenfresser]

If I understand it all correctly, the gent who gave us BioEdit will first have to update BioEdit to work with TOAW3, which Ben reports from the TDG forums that he's interested in doing. Then the gents who gave us XIXth Century dB will have to update that with the updated BioEdit using a TOAW3 .exe file. Then the scenarios will need converting to TOAW3, which I'm guessing works the same as updating scenarios from previous versions to COW...basically resaving them in the editor.

This is somewhat informed speculation, but speculation nonetheless.

[L`zard]

Just curious, I enjoy WW2 combat as much as the next person. But almost all of the TOAW scenarios and PBEM matches seem dedicated to WW2 scenarios.
I much prefer playing the modern combat scenarios and the more obscure the better.

It is a little dissapointing to see 65% of the TOAW III scenarios are WW2 era scenarios.

Another reason for the plethora of WW2 scenarios is the vast amount of 'easily' acessed backround info. Easily = free information.

Here to tell ya: some situations are really hard to find out about, including getting a reasonable map.

Try researching Dien Bien Phu, and you'll see why there are only a couple of scenarios existing, eh? You would think that the PAVN sorts would be more than happy to show how they destroyed the 'Imperialist running dogs', but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Maps? Sure, if your willing to spring $20-30 usd each, which you then have to scan into your puter yourself.

My hats off to 'obscure' scenario designers of whatever stripe, and good luck to you as well, eh?

[GJK]

If I understand it all correctly, the gent who gave us BioEdit will first have to update BioEdit to work with TOAW3, which Ben reports from the TDG forums that he's interested in doing. Then the gents who gave us XIXth Century dB will have to update that with the updated BioEdit using a TOAW3 .exe file. Then the scenarios will need converting to TOAW3, which I'm guessing works the same as updating scenarios from previous versions to COW...basically resaving them in the editor.

This is somewhat informed speculation, but speculation nonetheless.Great, thanks for the info! Is this something that Matrix is supporting or assisting with or is it up to 3rd party developers?

[Ben Turner]

If I understand it all correctly, the gent who gave us BioEdit will first have to update BioEdit to work with TOAW3, which Ben reports from the TDG forums that he's interested in doing.

Yeah. Yves is still a TDG member so hopefully he's around, but we haven't heard from him on the subject since TOAW III was released. He's a busy man it seems.

Ralph is very keen to get this done, so hopefully will give Yves all the support he needs.

[Ben Turner]

Here to tell ya: some situations are really hard to find out about, including getting a reasonable map.

Particularly in the modern world, a lot of the potential scenarios are hypothetical battles. Now, it's hard enough getting really detailed information on historical events, but events which never happened at all...?

Since the end of the Cold War, there hasn't been much in the way of potential for balanced conventional confrontations. The hypotheticals being devised to arrange such confrontations in the modern world are increasingly extreme. Such a lot of political buildup would be needed to get the great powers to go to war that their armed forces might well change beyond recognition in the meantime. Then there's nuclear weapons- they cast a long shadow over any conflict in the last sixty years, and especially in the last 45.

[ralphtrickey]

Yeah. Yves is still a TDG member so hopefully he's around, but we haven't heard from him on the subject since TOAW III was released. He's a busy man it seems.

Ralph is very keen to get this done, so hopefully will give Yves all the support he needs.
Have him contact me, I'll help all I can.

[Kraut]

Another aspect worth mentioning is balance. In a historic battle you know what the outcome should look like. Than you can simply take the historical OOB and TO&E and assign victory objectives acordingly to the historical battle. Afterwards you can tweak the settings of the scenario until you get the desired result and thereby the best possible simulation of the real battle.

Strictly speaking, you can fine tune your scenario using real world data to make it as realistic as possible in the constraints of the game.
And as there has been no hot WW3, this fine-tuning is really difficult to do for hypothetical modern battles, how strong is a NATO brigade really compared to a Warsaw Pact division? How good were the different doctrines if actually tested on the battlefield?

Mind you, in 1941 before the germans attacked the soviets estimated one of their divisions to be as powerfull as two german divisions... and we all know how well that theory held up in real battle ;)