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Thread 2101954

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Anonymous No.2101954 >>2102435
Armoured Commander 2
Is this game allowed here? Since &tg died, I haven't found a place to talk about it.
It's basically TBT, but you basically only control one unit.
It also has very minimalist, yet charming graphics.
If you are interested, I can shill it some more.
Anonymous No.2101963 >>2102206
i have it in my library, but there are like things competing with it all the time. the positive reviews are on steam talking about like all the pieces of gear that are there, but it all seems to come from the ww2 tech aficionado crow, and it doesn't answer the base question:

is it a good gaem?
Anonymous No.2102042 >>2102206 >>2104035
I want to get this but I just dont care that much about tanks. I want something extremely autistic like this but for artillery
Anonymous No.2102055
I want to like this but it's so boring.
Appreciate the autism though.
Anonymous No.2102206 >>2102247 >>2107896
>>2101963
>is it a good gaem?
It really entirely depends if you have the proper kind of tism for it.

Turn-based tank commanding in and by itself is already pretty niche, but factoring in the ASCII graphics and roguelike nature it becomes even niche-ier.
So if you can't deal with any of the above, keep moving, this isn't for you.

For everyone else, it will scratch a certain itch like basically no other game can.
WoT/WT? Freemium and everything bad it entails, and not strategy or tactics.
Steel Fury (Kharkov)? Great, but unwieldy, also not strategy or tactics.
GHPC? Cold War only, which I personally find rather uninteresting, especially since we won't get the Wiesel, plus not strategy or tactics.

This one is just... simple, in that you have a very intuitive interface, it can be played with keyboard only, you can save at almost any given point (which makes it great for people who can't sit down for even an hour or so at a time), but even with over 30 hours playtime I wouldn't say I have mastered it.
Obviously RNGesus will sometimes just try and punish you for being such a horrible sinner, but that's in the nature of the matter. And it's not like I haven't gotten a few lucky crits when seriously outgunned and on the brink of getting ammo rack'd. And the minimalist graphics really do their part to fire up your imagination, when you hear projectiles whizz by that were meant for you, when your commander almost gets domed by a lucky shot from some rifleman, when you throw smoke to conceal yourself from three directions of anti-tank guns to buy some time to gtfo there because they WILL turn your tank into scrap, or getting an incredibly lucky shot at a heavy tank after outflanking it, you will have those pictures in your mind and frankly, no amount of polygons could do that justice.

>>2102042
Do any good artillery games even exist AT ALL? inb4 some faggot recommending BAR
Anonymous No.2102247 >>2102268
>>2102206
I've had the demo sitting in my library for a while because it looks interesting.
How hard is it to learn?
Anonymous No.2102268
>>2102247
>How hard is it to learn?
The interface is pretty simple, and it tells you everything you need to know and some stuff you don't (for example I never actually cared about distances or anything, which imo is just for flavor).
What you need to understand is that you can't improve your machine - in fact, when you lose a vehicle, you just get a new one, so the important part is improving and more importantly, keeping alive your crew, so the first points always go into Grit.
Then it's a matter of finding out which skills are good and which are worthless. Overrun is extremely overpowered if you don't go against AT infantry or dudes with molotovs.
Being aggressive against guns can be advantageous as long as they haven't zeroed in on you, but then you can have a very bad time.
A good crew that has lived through the war will turn your tank into a rape train.

so tl;dr: basic shit is easy to learn, but mechanics and progression are naturally a bit more involved
Anonymous No.2102435 >>2102469
>>2101954 (OP)
As a long time roguelike player I can't help playing with the permadeath mode and all the realistic difficulty options, which inevitably leads to my commander dying to a sniper or airstrike every time I'm doing ok
Anonymous No.2102469
>>2102435
These are my go-to settings; I didn't set the random vehicle model because on my last playthrough I did a StuG run.
Anonymous No.2104035 >>2107688
>>2102042
You can also play as an armored car. Or a tank destroyer.
Anonymous No.2104427 >>2104500
Doing the mega campaign, started fighting in a Panzer I in Poland. This captured KV-1 I rolled truly is easy mode, very unstoppable. Somehow keep surviving injuries, been a lucky commander indeed.
Good fun.
Anonymous No.2104500 >>2104571
>>2104427
>mega campaign
What's that? A complete war with all engagements possible?
Did that once, before medals were buffed. Managed to get almost 700 VP in one day and still never got the oak leaves.
King Tiger with a good crew that can offset its flaws is an absolute rape machine.
Shame I can't post the screenshot because I am again some banned range.
Anonymous No.2104571 >>2104582
>>2104500
Yeah starting in poland, fighting to the end. I certainly haven't been in every engagement, spent a bit of time in hospital after getting knocked out several times. I'm sure the King Tiger would be crazy good, the KV is effectively invulnerable to anything the soviets have short of heavy AA and the sneaky ZiS-30, but I am certainly more used to the faster tanks. Using a Panzer IV E and spamming overrun attacks was good fun, but you certainly are vulnerable to the common 45mm guns.
Anonymous No.2104582
>>2104571
>Using a Panzer IV E and spamming overrun attacks was good fun, but you certainly are vulnerable to the common 45mm guns.
Yeah, overrun is pretty uber until you run into someone who can actually defend themselves.
Anonymous No.2107628 >>2107668 >>2117982
what are the most kino long campaigns to do besides German?
Anonymous No.2107668
>>2107628
I don't think I'll ever do a long campaign again after doing a full german war.
Anonymous No.2107688
>>2104035
hmm.. I do like me some armored car kino
Anonymous No.2107749 >>2107816 >>2107897
Hello fellow /&tg/ refugee, hope you're doing okay in these non-tactical times.

To the people on the fence about AC2 I will say that it is really customizable.
Trying to play even a single long campaign can get boring especially if you're playing with strong tanks like a tiger because it's easy to end up in autopilot, but you can play a full war with short campaigns and that will give you very digestible 5 to 12 combat days per campaign which is much more snappy as you'll be able to play with and against different hardware and in different environments fairly quickly. To each his own.
US, Germany, USSR and the UK all have your standard 5 men medium tanks that do great against most targets and are perfect for a first playthrough.
Italy and Japan are both fun nations if you're up for a challenge where you have to make sure encounters are actually winnable with your mediocre tanks and retreat to safety if the odds are against you, if you want this kind of tactical "ratty" gameplay you can also play with armored cars or recon vehicles from any nation.
Playing with random vehicles enabled is a fun way to try out some tanks that you wouldn't play otherwise but the annoying part is that an unlucky bailout might force your crew into a smaller tank and cost you levelled crewmen because the game doesn't let you have reserves.

I wish AC2 had a game mode where you had to earn good tanks through points instead of your score being purely for bragging right: the game's only goal is to not die and that incentivizes you to always play it safe instead of trying to do as many objectives as possible in a combat day.
I suppose it's more of an abstract tactical simulator than a game but it's a really good one with no equals that I know of.
Anonymous No.2107816
>>2107749
The thing is that shorter campaigns also mean less XP and ironically a worse chance to survive the war because your crew will be underleveled.
If you manage to survive e.g. a full Poland or Russo-Jap campaign your crew will already be seasoned enough to have way bigger chances to see it through, which is imo one of the biggest flaws regarding balancing.
You can only start any campaign with a completely green crew. Hell, you could e.g. buy XP with a malus on VP or something, which makes late war pretty miserable as the germans.
Then again I doubt that was in the original scope. With how much he has done over the years and especially since release, it's amazing enough what we got.
Anonymous No.2107896 >>2107900 >>2107933
>>2102206
>It really entirely depends if you have the proper kind of tism for it.
Ok I'll ask the heuristic:
how long does it take for a turn to pass?
Anonymous No.2107897 >>2107901
>>2107749
>single long campaign
Is there a "Forever War" mode where you just keep going till you lose the tank/crew?
Anonymous No.2107900 >>2107902
>>2107896
>how long does it take for a turn to pass?
Depending on how fast you press the buttons can be like three seconds to as long as you take to think about your actions.
Anonymous No.2107901 >>2107906
>>2107897
No, but one you've done just a full 60 day campaign you won't ask for that kind of stuff anymore lol
Anonymous No.2107902 >>2107908 >>2107933
>>2107900
how many inputs you gotta set up each turn?
like do I just command an attack on target hex or do I have to have the loader load manually load a shell and have the gunner calibrate the shots and adjust each turn?
the later may be too much autism for me.
Anonymous No.2107906
>>2107901
yeah that's true.
then again better gameplay will have players demand that mode (because it's so fun they'd want to play it eternally ;)
Anonymous No.2107908
>>2107902
Your turn consists of one action for each crew member, provided they can do an action.
So in a regular 5 dude German tank with Commander, Driver, Gunner, Loader and Assistant Loader/Radio dude you set the Loaders to load which leaves three actions.
Provided you are already engaging a target with your main gun you set the Commander to the "Direct Fire" action which also doesn't warrant any inputs and just gives a bonus to aim.
Since your aim gets thrown off by driving you leave the driver to do nothing.
Now you only have the gunner left where you choose which gun to use (main gun or coaxial, for example) and what kind of ammo (HE or AP in the broadest terms).
So that's one action with like three inputs, with all around probably less than 10 button presses to cycle through once.

Obviously depending on what you are doing you will have your commander throw a smoke grenade or man a machine gun, have your assistant loader patch someone up who got shot, and so on.
You can also order your squad to do stuff, but frankly, in a good 80 hours I have barely touched that since the "AI" is very, very basic.
Anonymous No.2107933 >>2107942
>>2107896
>>2107902
Every phase is handled with a handful of button press and takes a few seconds, it's super fast when you're in a simple situation and when you have to think about what you're doing planning takes more time than pressing the buttons.
I haven't played in a while but IIRC at its most complex a turn would be something like:
>random even phase (rare)
Planes or artillery happen, each with a second of animation or so, moves automatically to next one
>command phase
Down arrow + left/right arrow to change orders, this will determine what each crewmember does during the turn.
EG: loader is almost always set to "load" and that happens automatically but if needs be and depending on the tank he could spot for targets, heal or fire his SMG.
You can save a configuration as default and load it with a button.
>healing phase(optional)
Arrows to select heal target, confirm, next
>ammo rack organization phase (optional)
You can also fire ammo that is not in the ammo rack and the only penalty is that you're less likely to maintain the rate of fire
Press the "All [type] in the ammo rack please and thank you" button or change the shells manually with the arrows, next
>movement phase (optional but very common)
left/right to turn the tank, up down to move or C to hide from a target or U to unstuck the tank if you're stuck in mud, next
>fire phase (one per active weapon on your tank)
left/right to cycle through targets if needed, press fire button
1 second or so animation per shot
If you maintain RoF press fire again
next
>results phase
press F to see the result of your shots
>NPCs phase
>repeat

It's simple and fast once you get used to it
Anonymous No.2107942
>>2107933
ok cool, thanks for breaking it down for me.
i'll check out a let's play
Anonymous No.2108365 >>2108378 >>2108995
alright just bought this game
>cant use the mouse
REEE
Anonymous No.2108378
>>2108365
Why would you need to use the mouse?
Anonymous No.2108995
>>2108365
You can mouseover a zone or hex to get info on it, and right click to see info on the top unit in a stack
Anonymous No.2110542 >>2110554
Is there any other way to speed up the game? I don't want to spend minutes waiting for the dice to roll. It's just RNG, it should be near instant. I already set the animation speed to fast, but the game is still super slow because the animations take forever.
Anonymous No.2110554 >>2110633
>>2110542
I doubt there's anything you can do but set the animation speed to fast.
Plus, animation don't have anything to do with the dice rolls (which ARE instant), what kind of impatient faggot are you? What takes "minutes"?
Anonymous No.2110633 >>2110697
>>2110554
A large battle with a bunch of machine guns and autocannons shooting at each other just has you sit there waiting for all the shots to resolve
Anonymous No.2110697 >>2110720
>>2110633
Are you playing with mods or something? A round takes like a minute even with ten enemies at once, and honestly, if you are in a situation where you are getting shot at from so many different directions you better bail anyway.

That said, the dev is always active on Discrod, though I think an option to turn off animations is not something to be implemented, because at that point you can just do everything in spreadsheets anyway.
Anonymous No.2110720 >>2110724
>>2110697
>you can just do everything in spreadsheets anyway.
You play to imagine cool battle scenes in your head
I play to see number go up
We are not the same
Anonymous No.2110724
>>2110720
...thank god for that
Anonymous No.2110726 >>2123957
It's pretty cool, I played it a couple of years ago. Haven't touched it in a while but the dev (game is a single man project) keeps updating so it's nice.
Had a German campaign where I went through Poland, France, (long campaigns so had like 60 battle days in total, which is like 20 hours of IRL time), only to get completely btfo by T-34 in early days of Barbarossa. All things considered, it felt fair. I usually dislike rogue likes because of the RNG and this game certainly has RNG, but still, combat feels fair and fuckups happen because you get overconfident or unlucky which I guess is realistic in a war.
Anyway, I really liked the variety in tanks and nations you could fight in. I think you can pick any WW2 tank, and it will be represented in the game.
Anonymous No.2110729 >>2112963
Anyone here into modding?
Anonymous No.2112963
>>2110729
he cute
Anonymous No.2116046
bump
Anonymous No.2117982
>>2107628
i enjoyed desert rats
you just wreck shitty guido tanks and it's all fun and games until germans pull up
Anonymous No.2123033
>feels like BattleTech 1941
>but no dumb crap like heat management
>every tank/mech has a proper crew you need to manage
>being grounded in real history actually gives it way more tactical depth than any abstract sci-fi ruleset
>massive and addictive campaign layer
now i get it
Anonymous No.2123957
>>2110726
>I think you can pick any WW2 tank, and it will be represented in the game.
WRONG! There's no Bob Sample.
Anonymous No.2124291 >>2124308
What is the difference between the Steam and thw Github version?
Anonymous No.2124308 >>2125060
>>2124291
The github version is a really old one. Basically a demo, though it has way less features than the full version. It's still nice to dip your toes in and see what it was like.
Anonymous No.2125060 >>2125134
>>2124308
Is the Steam demo also as outdated?
I really can't find this information anywhere.
Anonymous No.2125134 >>2125516
>>2125060
No idea, does the demo not have a version number? The current version is at 1.2.68
Anonymous No.2125516
>>2125134
The demo is in 1.2.66, so not that outdated and it's a self-contained thing.