Does anyone else have interest in this?
Viet Nam Campaign Series?
- Thread starter weapon2010
- Start date
Nope.
Was hoping for a CS East/West Front upgrade.
Might be just fine, but I don't quite see how the CS format would translate all that well into the jungle.
Was hoping for a CS East/West Front upgrade.
Might be just fine, but I don't quite see how the CS format would translate all that well into the jungle.
Never heard of it.
Yeah, I forgot about that one.
R
ReplDepot
Guest
Campaign Series: Vietnam Point Form Review (v1.01b, as of 11 Feb, 2022)
Time spent to date on this game: ~100 hrs. Played 12 scenarios, including PBEM. Have used all the editors, created a test scenario from scratch, created a few minor mods. My wargaming experience: 50+ years tabletop, pen and paper, paper and cardboard, electronic. Own, and still play, all of the Campaign Series titles.
Pros:
- Visually appealing with nice graphics in both 2D/3D (orthographic) views that get the job more than done
- Plenty of visual aids provided to help understand the map and the run of gameplay
- Much improved UI over past Campaign Series games
- Full suite of editors for creators to roll their own scenarios (but see below)
- Generally challenging and absorbing gameplay (but see below)
- The scripted AI can put up a really good fight in most cases (but see below)
- A lot of scenarios are included (but see below)
- Support. Generally good response from the devs on associated forums. A goodly number of YT video how-tos and playthroughs created by the devs.
Cons:
- Unevenly written manual that can vary from detailed instruction, to vague, to non-existent in places. Many spelling and grammatical errors
- Questionable historical veracity in some of the so named historical scenarios (time, place, weather, OOB's inconsistent with actual events)***
- Some scenarios exhibit a lack of playtesting (victory conditions not easily understood, units start trapped by terrain, reinforcements not accessible)
- Some game features don't work, or work as they should (example, engineer units won't clear an LZ, airstrike markers that sometimes don't disappear, missing map labels, reuse of old sound files yielding unexpected results)
- Some graphics do not match their counterparts, and were poorly executed (one example, French national markings that display in some info boxes and the progress bar.
- Basic editors (Map, OOB, Scenario) work well and are relatively easy to use, editing the Adaptive AI (AAI) is not well documented and can be confusing. Editing using the Event Engine (CSEE) has little or no documentation, is also incumbent on acquiring, and learning, a couple of (albeit free) 3rd party apps in order to facilitate coding CSEE into a scenario - AAI and CSEE are the basis for the more challenging scenario AI opponent to work as it does, plus for the inclusion of other additional scenario features, such as SMEAC (the ingame equivalent of METT-T).
If I had known the above prior to buying, would I have still purchased? No
Will I buy future DLCs or other pay-to-own content for this title? Not in it's current state
Would I recommend this game to interested parties? No
Overall Score: 5/10
Briefly:
If the "Living Game" motif means putting out a partially complete product, sitting back, and letting the paying customers do the QA and playtesting for the devs on the fly, then the game should be sold for a lot less than $54 Can. I'm fairly, though not entirely, certain that wasn't the dev's intent; in which case, it's an earnest effort by a small team that needed more work before release to unkink things. Get some playtesters and proofreaders. There are always some folks who would be happy to test your product for free just to get their fifteen minutes in the sun and their name in the back of an e-manual.
Although CSEE in conjunction with AAI make for a much, much more capable AI opponent, and for other exciting scenario prospects as well, the cost in time and interest to learn how to manipulate Lua coding, and a couple of other apps in order to create 3rd party content, is beyond the purview of all but the truly dedicated and tech-savvy of gamers. Certainly, there will be a tiny few who will figure it out, and do some awesome things; there always is, bless them. But it will only be a tiny few.
*** Two scenarios in particular that caught my attention for a considerable lack of historical accuracy; "The Hills Have Eyes," (the Battle for Hill 830) and "The Birds Were Silent" (the destruction of Mobile Group 100). One or both of these have inaccuracies in their OOBs, unit locations, weather, support, dates, and objectives. In the case of the two aforementioned, a quick internet search yielded up operational documents and eye-witness accounts, footnoted, and with the positioning of key elements in relation to each other, well defined. The take away here is that the scenarios could have been a lot better; the information was there to be found. They don't rate the [HIST] designation in their current state.
My suggestion to the devs is to go back over the existing scenarios and determine which ones can honestly remain historical [HIST], and downgrade the rest to [HISTB] (based on) or even [FICT] (fictional). In the future, maybe it would be a better fit to provide twenty well researched and constructed scenarios, instead of a hundred that are of variable quality and veracity.
Time spent to date on this game: ~100 hrs. Played 12 scenarios, including PBEM. Have used all the editors, created a test scenario from scratch, created a few minor mods. My wargaming experience: 50+ years tabletop, pen and paper, paper and cardboard, electronic. Own, and still play, all of the Campaign Series titles.
Pros:
- Visually appealing with nice graphics in both 2D/3D (orthographic) views that get the job more than done
- Plenty of visual aids provided to help understand the map and the run of gameplay
- Much improved UI over past Campaign Series games
- Full suite of editors for creators to roll their own scenarios (but see below)
- Generally challenging and absorbing gameplay (but see below)
- The scripted AI can put up a really good fight in most cases (but see below)
- A lot of scenarios are included (but see below)
- Support. Generally good response from the devs on associated forums. A goodly number of YT video how-tos and playthroughs created by the devs.
Cons:
- Unevenly written manual that can vary from detailed instruction, to vague, to non-existent in places. Many spelling and grammatical errors
- Questionable historical veracity in some of the so named historical scenarios (time, place, weather, OOB's inconsistent with actual events)***
- Some scenarios exhibit a lack of playtesting (victory conditions not easily understood, units start trapped by terrain, reinforcements not accessible)
- Some game features don't work, or work as they should (example, engineer units won't clear an LZ, airstrike markers that sometimes don't disappear, missing map labels, reuse of old sound files yielding unexpected results)
- Some graphics do not match their counterparts, and were poorly executed (one example, French national markings that display in some info boxes and the progress bar.
- Basic editors (Map, OOB, Scenario) work well and are relatively easy to use, editing the Adaptive AI (AAI) is not well documented and can be confusing. Editing using the Event Engine (CSEE) has little or no documentation, is also incumbent on acquiring, and learning, a couple of (albeit free) 3rd party apps in order to facilitate coding CSEE into a scenario - AAI and CSEE are the basis for the more challenging scenario AI opponent to work as it does, plus for the inclusion of other additional scenario features, such as SMEAC (the ingame equivalent of METT-T).
If I had known the above prior to buying, would I have still purchased? No
Will I buy future DLCs or other pay-to-own content for this title? Not in it's current state
Would I recommend this game to interested parties? No
Overall Score: 5/10
Briefly:
If the "Living Game" motif means putting out a partially complete product, sitting back, and letting the paying customers do the QA and playtesting for the devs on the fly, then the game should be sold for a lot less than $54 Can. I'm fairly, though not entirely, certain that wasn't the dev's intent; in which case, it's an earnest effort by a small team that needed more work before release to unkink things. Get some playtesters and proofreaders. There are always some folks who would be happy to test your product for free just to get their fifteen minutes in the sun and their name in the back of an e-manual.
Although CSEE in conjunction with AAI make for a much, much more capable AI opponent, and for other exciting scenario prospects as well, the cost in time and interest to learn how to manipulate Lua coding, and a couple of other apps in order to create 3rd party content, is beyond the purview of all but the truly dedicated and tech-savvy of gamers. Certainly, there will be a tiny few who will figure it out, and do some awesome things; there always is, bless them. But it will only be a tiny few.
*** Two scenarios in particular that caught my attention for a considerable lack of historical accuracy; "The Hills Have Eyes," (the Battle for Hill 830) and "The Birds Were Silent" (the destruction of Mobile Group 100). One or both of these have inaccuracies in their OOBs, unit locations, weather, support, dates, and objectives. In the case of the two aforementioned, a quick internet search yielded up operational documents and eye-witness accounts, footnoted, and with the positioning of key elements in relation to each other, well defined. The take away here is that the scenarios could have been a lot better; the information was there to be found. They don't rate the [HIST] designation in their current state.
My suggestion to the devs is to go back over the existing scenarios and determine which ones can honestly remain historical [HIST], and downgrade the rest to [HISTB] (based on) or even [FICT] (fictional). In the future, maybe it would be a better fit to provide twenty well researched and constructed scenarios, instead of a hundred that are of variable quality and veracity.
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