Don Maddox said:
I still have serious reservations about POA-2 as a whole.
1. I don't like the way the interface is set up. I have to search for information that I need while information I will probably only reference once during the entire battle is hogging up valuable screen space. I don't need to see the OOB tree nor do I need to see the weather all the time. The terrain info is redundant as this info is already displayed in the moveable popup window. The changes Scott made to the combat phase window are helpful, but I don't like this thing. I would much prefer it be "docked" somehow or integrated into the interface.
2. The composite units seem to help, but I still get confused on what unit is what. The whole way units are implemented is still quite confusing and strange compared to other wargames.
3. It's too hard to see what's going on with artillery. When artillery impacts the map, you hear a sound and the map displays a red marker. It's difficult to follow exactly what is happening and why. It would be helpful if there were some decent animation to display what's happening with fire support.
4. The sim does seem to perform better than before, but the way combat results are displayed is both bland and difficult to follow at times. The player is either inundated with a blizzard of information or has no idea what the hell is happening. Take your pick.
I have serious doubts that POA-2 is ever going to gather any momentum within the community. For starters, the map making process almost physically painful and this virtually strangles further scenario development. While it is possible to make new maps, they require a massive amount of effort, effort, and you have to pay additional money for the editor.
I played two scenario this morning with build 160 and I got two C++ errors. Still, I was able to complete most of the battles. But I have to admit that POA-2 still is not enjoyable for me to play. It may be neat from a technical standpoint, but it's just no fun (yet) to use. Perhaps that will change at some point.
those are good criticisms. The interface can be made cleaner just by x-clicking away the force tree so I don't see that as a real big deal. Artillary shows what unit fired what kind of round for what kind of effects in the combat resolution box, so I don't know what other info you would need.
The unit stuff is still a little odd to me, I'm trying to figure out how the units are organized for orders but I think that's because I haven't read up on compoisite units like I should. Overall though if I give an order to a unit it generally starts to do what I expect. Loaded units sometimes muck things up for me but I just limit the order to the carrying unit and then it makes more sense.
Players can make the map area as clean as you like by just relying on popup data or a overlay information window that can be minimized, everything can be x-away or minimized so I don't have much issue with that. Most windows can be clicked to remain on top too. I remeber Harpoon2 where you had either On/Off with no other choice and that was a cluttered and redundant screen.
Combat results show what I would think makes sense- Who fired what at what enemy unit with what kind of effect. I don't know what else could be added.
Map making....
Oh Dear God, when does the nightmare end? :nuts:
I have given my honest best at trying to follow the tutorial and have had limited success. I understand that the results will be painfully realistic, but I stress the word "painfully".
It appears in my opinion to be the most overcomplicted, tempermental and unstable task to create a decent topographic map. I know the deep amount of detail is what is making it so heavy a workload- but some of it is really more like voodoo mapmaking. I mean, follow the directions, then slay a small farm animal and sacrafice it to the digital lords of mapland, dance three times in a circle around your monitor and say the Lord's Prayer backwards all while wearing a Darth Vader costume and MAYBE you will have a map!
So I am astounded that there are these handful of nice maps that came with the game and I pity the poor human slave whom HPS has locked in a dungeon somewhere doing this work.
But it is growing into the fun catagory for me because I see some really interesting things happening when I play and it seems to harken back to my experiences when I first played Harpoon2 and Steel Panthers a bit.
And hey- Things can only get better right?